What Is Blossom End Rot? In short, blossom end rot is a condition where the tomato (or any flowering vegetable/fruit for that matter) begins to get a brown or darkening spot on the blossom, or “bottom” end. The decaying will generally become larger as the tomato gets larger. Once a tomato begins showing signs of blossom end rot, it is too late. It is best to go ahead and pick off the rotted fruit and chunk it in the trash, or compost pile. What Causes Blossom End Rot? Blossom end rot is caused by a calcium deficiency in the soil, which in turn leads to a calcium deficiency in the tomatoes. This lack of calcium inhibits the growth of the fruit creating the brown or black decaying spot. Excessive soil moisture fluctuations can also create an environment ripe (no pun intended) for this condition. How To Treat and Prevent Blossom End Rot There are many ways to combat blossom end rot for tomatoes. Prevention starts at the bottom – the soil. Test your soil’s pH level; you want to have a pH of 6.5 to 6.7 for tomatoes. The best way to adjust pH for symptoms is to add garden lime. I suggest using pelleted garden lime over using hydrated lime. Hydrated lime usually comes in a powdered form and is mostly used in lawns or similar applications. Garden lime is specifically formulated for gardening situations. Add about a cup of garden lime per plant, in the hole when planting. Use about a 1/2 cup of garden lime every 4 – 6 weeks after planting. Make sure to follow the instructions that are on the bag. There are some other tricks you can implement in order to get the much needed calcium to your plants: Take finely crushed egg shells and add to the hole when planting tomatoes. Add about two egg shells per plant. Give your tomato plants a milk bath. Pour about 3 cups of whole (not skim) milk into a hose sprayer and water each tomato at the base of the plant. If you get any milk on the leaves of the plant, rinse off with regular water. Avoid letting the milk dry on the leaves. Do this twice a week if blossom end rot is severe. One of the most important things to remember is to regularly water tomato plants. By watering, then waiting long periods to water again highly contributes to blossom end rot. Avoid letting the soil dry out between waterings. Do not over do it – overwatering can cause the condition as well. Avoid over fertilizing, as the excessive nitrogen can cause blossom end rot. It can be tricky to get the correct balance of proper watering and pH, but is crucial in growing those perfect tomatoes.
I picked 22 1/2 lbs of beets on Saturday, which was probably 1/3 of my entire crop. I canned them all and only got 11 quarts out of that entire amount. Needless to say, I'm extremely disappointed with my beets this year. After reading all of the positive reviews, I decided to try the Early Wonder variety instead of the Detroit Deep Reds that I plant every year. The biggest beets are smaller than a tennis ball with most of them being barely bigger than a golf ball. The flavor is bland. There's only a small hint of the earthy sweetness that most beets have. If that wasn't bad enough, even the beets the size of a golf ball are so woody that I can barely cut through them with a paring knife. It's like each one has a damn 2 x 4 running through it. If these beets were a character on Cheers, they'd be Woody Boyd. If they were a president, they'd be Andrew Johnson because they suck so bad (I bet you thought I was going to say Woodrow Wilson)
My two big tomato plants. They're both about 4 feet tall now, much larger than I expected for both of them. I have two others but are not quite as large or productive as these two. The cherry. Absolutely covered in tomatoes. Heirloom. Recovered quite nicely from the deer.
someone help me here. a bunch of people in my neighborhood have these trees... musta been apart of the neighrborhood when built in the 80s.. leaves comin down crazy in august for no reason (plenty of rain). i think it might be bug related, a lot of the other ones are comin down too thoughts? what kind of tree is it, what might be the issue, what could be a fix? leaves have little tiny holes on them, maybe 20-30 a leaf... looks like swiss cheese Spoiler
ehh, maybe? i cut some of the branches last summer because it was shaded and had weeds. the grass has definitely grown into it but its on the corner of where it gets sun. it ends into some moss/weeds, bullshit that doesnt get sun/sucks i need to go to home depot soon for air filters. what sorta shit can i get that will kill them/protect grass etc. double RL
I did mine last week. Orange bag I think it was and then I applied Hi Yield (Fertilome brand) pre emergent.
Started out with this Spoiler The picture is deceptive. There is actually close to 25 lbs of tomatoes on the counter there. Waved my magic wand and uttered the proper incantations and came up with this. Spoiler 30 1/2 pints of salsa and another 7 quarts of green beans. I still have about twice as many tomatoes still in the garden, so the next round will be spaghetti sauce.
Most everyone around here is done with their tomatoes but the heavy fertilizer and water that I've given mine means they're still going.
My romas are still going pretty strong, the others are all dying off None did all that well this year, with all the rain they got weeds real bad then we went straight to drought that i think i took too long to catch the watering schedule up to So qhats yalls thoughts on peat moss? Mow it all down and till in now, or wait to till in until im ready to plsnt again?
Thanks for this... I threw some more garden lime into the soil, and removed all the tomatoes that were already affected by the end rot, and the problem seems to have gone away.
Checked on the bees some more. I'm down to 4 hives due to failing queens, but the queens that are left have been laying really nice brood patterns. See if you can spot the queen in the first pic. The 2nd and 3rd pics are from the bees I caught recently. And the last two are from my strongest hive.
My cherry tomato plant. Unfortunately my basil appears to have gotten a fungus on it in addition to both of my lowland blueberry bushes. I've been treating them with a fungicide but it doesn't appear to be working. I got this tomato plant and one other from a coworker. She didn't know what kind it was, but the tomatoes are shaped like peppers which I find interesting. Anybody know what these are?
Well I checked the basil today and all six plants are completely covered in the downy mildew. I've been hoping I could save them, but I think I'm going to have to pull them up and throw them out as every leaf I looked at had mildew underneath. Apparently this mildew has been becoming more and more prevalent, so for any of you who want to grow basil in the future, be sure to stay on top of applying fungicide before it takes hold. I doubt I'll be able to grow basil again in that bed due to it now being in the soil.
One of my new blue berry bushes decided to drop all of it's leaves last week. No idea what happened to it. I had been pretty good about watering them every other day and I missed a hot stretch and I'm guessing it got too stressed. The thing looked pitiful, but the rest are doing great.
We had a really bad drought and I think I lost 4 of my bushes because I was a bad farmer and didn't water shit.
I got some miniature bottles to save some of the different honey's I've gotten in just to see the differences. The two on the left are from this year. The one on the right is some my parents extracted in 1980. I also made some chapstick today with some of the beeswax. Am having my wife have some of her friends try it out for feedback.
Just moved in to the new house. Will it be worth planting any herbs at this time in dallas? I'm looking at basil, chives, oregano, parsley, thyme, and/or cilantro. They will be in planter boxes and can be shaded or in the sun.
I would plant. Cilantro, thyme, chives and parsley are hardy. Get some rosemary going too, it's pretty tough. If they get 4 hours of sun they will be fine.
Got these today. The top four are some sort of heirloom, the first I've gotten of that plant. Next two are bush celebrity, and husky cherry tomatoes.
lhprop1 and others Made a batch of hot sauce about a month ago. Has just been sitting in the fridge in tupperware. Ph is at 4.2/4.3, fridge is at 36 degrees, too late to can? Should I toss it?
No idea, chief. I'd give it the sniff test and see what the nose says. With a pH that acidic, you normally shouldn't have to pressure can it. After it's been sitting that long, I don't know if a normal hot water bath will cut it or not. I've never been in that situation before. Most of my stuff gets canned within 7-10 days of picking. As far as my garden is going, here's my yield so far: Green beans: 34 lbs picked. 31 quarts canned. 2 rows of beans still in the ground that'll be ready to pick this week. Tomatoes: 61 lbs picked. 30 pints of salsa, 14 quarts of spaghetti sauce. I have 20 lbs picked and ready to can this weekend and another 25-30 lbs still on the vine. Beets: 63 lbs picked. 24 quarts canned. Peppers and jalapenos have been enough so far to can all of the tomatoes, but they're running short. Potatoes: Picked about 10 lbs so far just for garden-to-table use. Not sure how many I still have in the ground. Carrots: 7-8 lbs picked for snacking. Hopefully another 20 lbs still in the dirt for canning.
I live in Nashville and am still getting tomatoes. My cherry tomatoes are producing at a rate I have never seen before.
My sage, oregano and rosemary come back every year. I'm in Birmingham, so Dallas should be fine. Actually, rosemary will grow about 9 months a year in the south. I have four rosemary's and they're all about three feet by three feet. When I'm having people over to cookout or something, I trim them with the string trimmer and the whole yard smells like rosemary for an hour or two.
decided i wanted to grow hot peppers for a hobby bought the following from pepperlover.com: sweet trinidad scorpions red devil's tongues yukari bakans (for an ornamental pot) peter peppers because weenies are funny peach bhut jolokias carolina reapers red fataliis datils really excited about it
Goldenrod is in full bloom now and it's covered up with bees when it's not raining. Their last real bloom to gather honey/pollen. You can see the pollen sacs on it's back legs.
Things are getting hectic in my garden. It hasn't rained in weeks and yesterday it finally came. Well so did the wind and nocked around all my tomato plants. I have two in cages which they've both outgrown and are overflowing and leaning hard and two that are staked which I keep having to add stakes to. I vastly underestimated how big these plants would get. What do yall use for tomato support?
ive got my grow led bulb, pack of seedling pellets and a warming mat are en route and my seedlings are getting started also used thai chiles in dinner tonight so i said why not and started 5 of those too should get the mat and pellets on friday
Good luck keeping those seeds separated when you pull the paper towel apart. I always have a fun time Some squash that sprung up in the compost heap to tide me over until next spring when I can make some moves out here.. Need protection from rabbits and other critters and have to slap a couple of greenhouses and some fencing up. Squash purée til I puke until then Looking at leaf shredders to get some good dirt for next spring, I'm guessing I want to go gas if I'm asking it to do a lot of running..? Any recs?
Can anyone tell me what's eating these tomatoes? I've inly got a few days left before the season ends, so I'm not sure if I should just pick them now and let them ripen inside so they don't get eaten further or let them continue to grow outside for a few more days.
There would be no foliage if it was a hornworm. They completely strip the plant. Fruitworms only make holes in the plant. Look in the holes. He's there somewhere.
Looks like you've also got some leaf miner damage on there. Just dust the plants with Sevin and you're good.
Yea I've been noticing green poop on my tomatoes for a week or two now but haven't seen anything on them except for a frog. I am expecting the first frost in a week or two, so I don't know how aggressive I want to get.
Pretty sure if you just open up one of your tomatoes you will find out exactly what the problem is. I agree with CharlieKelly. Take off the tomatoes with holes and sevindust everything else.