[mtoyne]

Hiya, am quite new to veg, thought it would be a nice idea to plant pumpkins this year so my kids could carve them at halloween, they did great till i planted them in to final growing position then died. I got given a courgette plant that i put in a big planter and the stem leading in to the ground has gone soft, have got cucumbers that are suitable for outside growing but the leaves are shrivling up and going brown now, where am i going wrong? Ive planted plenty of root veg and these are growing very happily, i live in North Yorks.

[compostqueen]

I kept some plants back to plug gaps if any died as they do seem to keel over at the slightest thing.  Sometimes it's slug damage to the stems, birds uproot them. At the moment I have rabbits and moles and I noticed yesterday that one of my courgettes was high and dry with no soil left under it as it had been undermined by either of those two annoying pests  :evil:  I had a healthy looking cue which just keeled over for no apparent reason - could have been overwatered is my only suspicion

So to  conclude, it's not just you who has trouble    and my advice is to keep stuff in reserve. Same with runner beans