Death in the garden - cucumber wilt

I'm starting to think that I am not very good at this gardening thing. My two Japanese cucumber plants were looking really good just 5 days ago. They were happily growing up the trellis with a couple of cute little yellow flowers brightening up the balcony garden.

Happy days of Japanese cucumber

Happy cucumber grabbing onto the trellis

I was getting excited about harvesting my very own Japanese cucumbers. Then bam! Almost overnight both plants started to wilt. First I thought it was water, so I tried watering and it looked as though they were recovering that evening. But after that, the leaves looked sad and droopy the next few days.

My sad wilting cucumber

I cut the stem and stuck it in water to see if I can see some cloudy substance (which would have been cool to see) but I saw nothing. I looked at the base of the stem and it looked wet and squishy.

not so happy looking stem

The second stem looked healthy, but the plant was looking just as sick. I'm not sure if a rotting disease is different from cucumber wilt, but if it was wilt, I didn't want the bacteria to spread to my healthy champion bush cucumber. So I begrudgingly decided to pull the plants out. I also found this guy:

Not a friend - spotted cucumber beetle

When I snapped the picture I thought this was a yellow ladybug or a bad bug I should squish. I did a google search and learned that it is a spotted yellow cucumber beetle that spreads bacterial wilt. I rushed back out the balcony but by then the little bugger had flown away. Next time I will not be so kind! I'm debating whether to start new plants (in a different pot) or not. For now, I plan to grow some sugar snap peas in place of the Japanese cucumbers.  And I will also keep a close eye on my still-happy champion cucumber.

Champion bush cucumber still happy and healthy

Death in the garden...

The heat and humidity is absolutely terrible! I hope those of you experiencing the heat wave are doing OK. Unfortunately, one of the weak tomato seedling could not withstand the heat. Although it probably would not have survived even if we didn't have the heat wave. Before I went to Japan, my plants were transported to my boyfriend's balcony.

Traveling charm city balcony garden

Plants @ temporary home

The young tomatoes looks leggy

He did a great job taking care of all the plants, but his balcony is shaded throughout the day and only gets a little bit of sun in the morning. My balcony, on the other hand, gets full sun all day. The past couple of days the temperature reached over 120F. The plants are probably in shock with this huge change in environment. I did try to acclimate them, but the weakest seedling (supersweet tomato) did not survive:(

Sad looking supersweet 100

The cherokee purple and pink champion is holding on. I planted a good portion of the tomatoes stem hoping it will produce roots to help it along. Both plants are not very bushy so it I may not get any tomatoes but I'm just going to let it grow and keep my fingers crossed.

Cherokee purple hanging on

Pink Champion tomato

To replace my poor supersweet tomato plant, I started some cucumbers (2 varieties, one is Japanese and the other is a Bush Champion). This will be a little experiment since I think it is a little late to start cucumbers.

Dino kale (left), Japanese cucumber and Champion Bush cucumber