Its possible a part of the root rotted because of too much water.
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Hi Jan, how does the stem look the first 30 cm after ground/soil, i had some cucumber plants (vƤsterĆ„sgurka) behave like this some years ago, the stem looked like a ākinkā on a garden hose, maybe acted that way? It was probably due to to fast growing in the beginning, before it was re-planted in the bed.
I know i didnāt damaged it, but i was a little slow to re-plant them from the small start-pots, like the plant grow faster than the base stem?
Sorry, this became messy, hope someone understand what i mean? 
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I donāt see any difference on the stem of this one compared to the other cucumbers.
But felt im the soil yesterday, it was like a wet sponge, probably too much water.
We had tomato and cucumber in each greenhouse of 500m2, before, and I had few drip irrigation, have put this in this greenhouse as well this year, maybe it was too easy to water this year.
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I donāt think itās watering at all Jan. Pretty obvious that cucumber suffers from Peyroniesās disease. 
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There are a couple of brown spots on one of the lower leaves. I donāt know if that is insect bite or not. The cucumber beetles leave behind bacteria that kill the plant. AFAIK there is nothing you can do about it. although some varieties are resistant to the bacteria.
It could also just be environmental stress.
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Have a look at thisā¦ Your symtoms remind me of what my vine borers plants did If the plant does die, I suggest you open up the vine and check for a worm inside the vineā¦
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I use pesticides but ideally not in places I would want to plant food. They are so common, and I think people would be more against them if they knew the side effects, yet also can be useful tool. Like when out in the woods & its tick season I prefer permethrin coated socks and pantsā¦
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A few pictures of my various composting methods.
This is a PVC contraption used to aerate the leaves in the bins. It could be used in any kind of bin. or enclosure. getting air into the composting material will shorten processing time by months.
This is just a round cage made from Reinforcing mesh. I have these spotted around my woods. It takes over a year and a half for leaves to break down in this but useable leaf mold by spring if itās filled in the fall and kept wet.
Tumblers made from 55 gallons barrels. I have several of these as well. They work good if you remember to water them, keep filling them and rotating them. I usually donāt.
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I found out they wanted `1 dollar per cardboard egg carton the other day. I canāt imagine you canāt make an egg carton with this method. but he did mention it falls apart in water which may be good for a garden transplant type of pot as well or just dissolve it and throw it in the garden for worm food. 
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Newspaper and a little flour/water paper-mache paste works well and is plenty cheap.
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I just saw the egg carton shape, and was told they were expensive to buyā¦ I didnāt believe the person, then I looked up the price they wanted for them and it was $1+/carton for anything under like 100.
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Just ask friends / neighbors to save those old egg cartons for you. If you are going to sell eggs, you might have to charge more to cover the cost of a new carton. Have your ācustomersā bring their own. If you are going to store them for your own use, they store quite a long time if you donāt wash them. Or, like Wayne and Lisa K., they said scramble and freeze in flexible silicone muffin pans, bulk store a long time in freezer. Then again, a dog may kill all your chickens, and you buy cheaper but inferior store-bought eggs after thatā¦ 
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We did this for many years, offered 50c off the price of a dozen eggs to bring your own carton, then people started donating cartons to us and before we new it there was about 500 of them stashed in the laundry room 
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We sold eggs as a business (and still do but in a much smaller manner) and the customers started bringing the cartons back out of their own, asking if we wanted them back since they thought it was a shame to throw away. And we did re-use a lot of cartons and flats, we only sold 10-packs and 30-flats and about half were reused ones. We were a fairly small eggbusiness a few years back when we had more chickens, we sold a little over 2000 eggs a week then in mostly 30-flats but now we are scaled down because of mainly feed price, we did buy organic bulk feed but it increased by 30% in one go and then we made that decision. Now we only sell about 100 a week, more of a hobbybusiness.
Which means the Salatin-inspired āeggmobileā is only standing behind a shed unused. Perhaps we scale up again but we are more focusing on ourselves, family and fixing up the farm now.
One of our customers is bringing us loads of eggcartons but we give them to another farmer who also sells eggs so they get used.
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Wow Johan thats a lot of beaks!
Feed yesā¦ thats the problem. Cant say you are self sufficiant till you got that sorted out. Hats off to Joel to what he is doing but he still buys feed for his pigs and poultry. Its what l wuld like to avoyd somewhere in the future
The thing is, when you grow and process your own grain or potatoes, feeding a load of that to feed the animals and only get like 10-30% of that converted to meat, milk and eggs feels like a waste. Better just eat the grain. But on the other hand, l my self culdnt function without those products. I like to eat well 
so for us its always a bargain.
We got messed up real bad last year. I pastured pigs for years and realy got he hang of it, well, last year a game warden came and sayd l cant do it any more. He listed some reasons that were frankly just comical but ok, l locked up the pigs. Now they make absolutely no sence any more and l may have to say good bye to pork for a while, till we get the homestead fenced. ā¬ā¬ā¬ā¬. Without pasture last autum, pigs were small and lean. Its our first year without cured meat, and most of all, lard. We rely on vegetable oil now and frankly, this stuff is only good for old diesels.
The pigs we raise do real good devouring vast amounts of low calorie food and turn it to good meat and fat, but caged in, their feed to body mass conversion ratio is low compared to other breeds. Mortality increased drasticly too, they just need the pasture.
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Yes, many dinosaurs around your feet then
We had 360-ish back then on pasture, moved every other day
Eating well, that is part of why we started. 
I totally agree, a friend farmer is working on his own feed for poultry, growing all of it himself, peas and beans for protein and I promised Iād make a field test for him when he is ready. I love him but he is a bit chaotic so I donāt know when that will happen. On the other hand he could also surprise me and have it all ready. Dont know really.
Here in Sweden if you raise animals for meat for yourself there are less rules, just the basic obvious ones.
This is true for all animals I would stretch out and say, the meatchickens we raise on pasture, moved at least once every day to fresh pasture make for a superior meat, the same as all the other types of animals on pasture, all yellow fat. Just awesome. Pigs though, I havenāt seen yellow fat pigs but I havent seen true pastured pigs in real life either. I have not yet started with having pigs but do they also get yellow fat?
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Same thing here Marcus, we have way to many egg cartons now, 18 and 12 pack.
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What kind of beans does he plan to grow? My plan is feald peas and broadbeans.
No, fat is always white on pigs. But the taste is superior. Now that l have them caged in and rely on bought feed, the meat tastes like average pork.
There is a rich tradition in the South of catching dormice for eating and mostly for their fat. Pharmacys still buy it for treating skin conditions and burns. Aparently, the nuts they eat give their fat some special propertys. I talked with a guy thats an expert on the feald and he sayd that pigs that forage on acorns, beech nuts and chestnuts will have fat not much inferior to those of dormice. It does need to be processed differently thugh, never exceeding 60c when rendering to retain the beneficial compounds but the points l wanted to make are first, thats proof feed has huge impact on quality. Second, we too are what we eat so eat wellā¦
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Like the spanish super expensive ham called pata negra.
I do think it is the same ones, not 100% on the broadbeans though. Iāll ask him when I see him.
On the dormice part, I think I have to be pretty hungry to even think about eating thoseā¦ I know it is just a mindset but it is only one level higher then eating bugs for me.
I have noticed a bit of change in people, well at least our customers, that they are moving towards higher quality food products so there is a growing market for producing quality instead of quantity and actually getting paid for that too
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Mindset indeed. For some reason, most Americans l talked to dont have a problem with eating a squirl, but eating a horse is like eating a pet. The opposite is true here
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