What is eating my cucumber plant?

[Pixie Power]

Hi everyone. We are new to gardening. With everything going on we decided to stock up on some food and attempt to start a small garden just to see if we can get anything to grow at our postage stamp sized lot. My wife loves the Cherub tomatoes but could not get seeds so we dried a few out and have grown 1 full plant and another one has started. We have added other tomatoes, a few peppers, a strawberry plant and a cucumber. The cucumber took off like a weed and I quickly moved it into a bigger pot with some support.

Recently have have noticed it has been getting eaten, including one of the cucumbers and noticed this black stuff on the leaves. Any idea of what is chowing down on it and how to get rid of it? Thanks.

 

[YumYum]

Are June bugs or Japanese beetles out in your area yet?

Take that cucumber off and slice into it until you find the bug/worm, if it is in there.

 

[Pixie Power]

We do have June bugs here (we are in Largo, FL, a suburb of Tampa) but I haven't seen any recently. I am not sure if we have the Japanese beetles. I did cut into the cucumber but there was nothing inside.

 

[MiTmite9]

You're in south Florida. Pickleworms:

Who’s Eating My Cucumbers? Pickleworms, That’s Who.

My humble vegetable garden is, of late, my pride and joy. Since I don’t have a particularly green thumb, the mere fact that we were able to get seedlings to grow, and we were able to actually…

alexandraalessandri.com

 

[YumYum]

I've had pickleworms here on occasion. They are usually found in the cucumber though.