Persian Cucumber Update

This was my first trying using the Earth Box and so far so good. These cucumbers have done far better than my Japanese variety I planted in the ground. I have about 8 tiny cucumbers, the largest one (pictured above) will be ready to pick in next week I believe. They are much happier and growing much faster than my previous attempt.

I believe the main difference to be the sun. My garden in the ground gets full sun pretty much all day and the cucumbers would wilt midday. The peppers and tomatoes seem to enjoy all that sun but the cucumbers are just too delicate.My earth box cucumbers are under our pergola so they are shaded throughout the day but also get plenty sun.

I did buy neem oil once I saw the signs of leaf miners. Most of the bad leaves towards the bottom I removed, some remain as you can see from the picture. All the new fresh leaves on top came out huge, dark green, and very happy.  That was until lately I started to notice some holes on the leaves. Started about 5 days ago and upon closer inspection I realized I had a green caterpillar issue. I manually removed all the ones I found and that put a halt to the holes however every morning there are more (super tiny freshly hatched) underneath the leaves. I have been smashing them because they're just too tiny to remove. I seem to be catching them before they do any real damage but it is exhausting to look for the little guys every single morning. I am pondering buying an organic caterpillar poison to spray on the leaves, They are obviously hatching from eggs I am not seeing. I keep blowing off little eggs I do see but I can't keep up.

Have to think of a better solution. This container currently holds 4 plants, you can see the one on the right towards the front (gets the most sun) is doing best out of the four.