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On Saturday, my cucumbers looked perfectly healthy. On Sunday, half of one of my cucumbers had very wilty leaves. On Monday, the other half of the cucumber's leaves were all wilty.

I have seen cucumber beetles on my cucumber plants before, and still do. I was previously unaware of the bacterial danger they posed to my plants so I didn't do too much to fight them, as the leaves weren't being eaten too much. There was also another kind of beetle that I don't recognize and don't have pictures of, maybe twice the size of the cucumber beetles and having orange highlights.

This cucumber is growing very close to/on top of some other cucumbers. I also have a zucchini plant and some butternut squash plants pretty close to the wilted cucumber, as well as some more cucumber plants further away in the same garden. My garden also has pinto beans, garden beans, carrots, roma tomatoes, and russet potatoes.

Picture: enter image description here

  • Does the bacterial wilt pose a threat to any of the other plants in my garden?
  • Is there a possibility of bacterial wilt spreading plant to plant? Should I remove the wilted cucumber, and if so how?
  • What should I do now to kill as many cucumber beetles as possible? The space I garden in is assigned as an organic garden space.
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  • Too late for killing the beetles, next year don't plant in the same area...rotate your crops for next year and use FLOATING ROW CLOTH to cover all of your brassicas, solanaceae, squash and cucumber plants until the beetles are done laying eggs. This also helps with flea beetles with I have just done war with...you never want to use any pesticide on your vegetable gardens. And there are so very many ways to deal with disease, insects without use of any pesticide. I was licensed up the ying yang for pesticide use and what they taught was HOW NOT TO USE pesticides!! Very cool.
    – stormy
    Jul 11, 2016 at 22:01
  • We need pictures with which to diagnose FOR CERTAIN what you've got. How do you know it is bacterial wilt? Which one? Please send pictures!! This is a great question.
    – stormy
    Jul 11, 2016 at 22:03
  • Are you sure it is bacterial? How are you watering the plant and i the soil moist? A zoomed out picture would be helpful
    – JStorage
    Jul 12, 2016 at 22:22

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I would first confirm that this bacterial wilt. Confirm the disease is present with the below test:

Take a knife and slice open a stem along its length. If you see a substance resembling thick white liquid, then you have confirmed your plant indeed has bacterial wilt.

With regard to how to save your remaining plants, remove all plants showing signs such as wilted leaves, as infected plants serve as vectors for cucumber beetles.

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