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I am growing a few cucumber plants in a raised bed. I find that each plant produces a number of flowers and only one of the flowers turns into a cucumber and the rest of them dry up/wither. After I pick the cucumber, the same thing happens and only one of the flowers survives. Is that the expected behavior? Does the cucumber take up took many plant resources that it does not allow other flowers to convert to a cucumber?

JStorage
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No a single plant can produce many cucumbers at once. It mostly depends on how long the cucumber vine as able to grow before flowering.

The first flower is usually male, the ones that follow are the females and what produce the fruit.

Escoce
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  • So far my experience is as explained in the question. I am getting one cucumber at a time. Any reason why that would be the case? – JStorage Jun 23 '16 at 04:36
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    Late planting, lack of nutrients, lack of water, container planting...or they are just maturing at different rates which is normal, and in a few days you may find a cucumber that was too small to find previously. They can get lost in the vines. – Escoce Jun 23 '16 at 13:12
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Generally, no, a cucumber vine should produce several cucumbers.

I don't know that this would help but I'm trying hand pollination with some of my vegetables this year. I'm wondering if this might help you. With my tomatoes, I just give the branches that have flowers a gentle shake every other day and I did fairly well with them considering this was my first attempt.

SouthernGardner
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  • Plants like tomatoes and cucumbers are insect pollinated and don't produce enough pollen, nor is the pollen suited to travel through the air and pollinate the female flowers. Shaking the branches will be an ineffective way of pollinating these plants, though it's possible it will do a little something. To hand pollinate, use something like a paintbrush and get pollen from male flowers and transfer to female flowers. Tomatoes have male and female parts in the same flower, so go flower to flower Not trying to rain on your parade, just trying to make sure we spread good information. =] – Tyler K. Aug 18 '17 at 16:52