Blossom end rot: One common disease of tomatoes

Never heard of "blossom end rot" until after we had moved to Missouri, but I have now. Our first garden here in Scott City was at the house we lived in on Helene Street. We had a fair-sized garden with probably 15 to 20 tomato plants. At that time I spent virtually all my free time fishing, so we had bunches of fish guts and skins and such. I had heard an old Indian legend where they would bury a fish under certain plants, so I figured it should work on tomatoes. The boys and I (mostly me) went to digging and burying fish guts. I tried to get them deep enough so the tiller wouldn't dig them up. We were mostly successful. Mostly! Then I planted my tomatoes directly over the fish gut hot spots. Honestly those tomatoes just blew out of the ground. I kind of wondered if the tomatoes would be fishy but they weren't.

When we sold that house and moved out where we live now, it was a big change. Mr. Wheeler had a decent-sized garden spot, but as he got older, he pretty much quit gardening. We had the soil tested, and we fertilized it as they recommended. Tomatoes did fair, while the weeds did awesome. Didn't have blossom end rot at all.

But about 8 years ago, give or take, we put the high tunnels up, and blossom end rot showed up. I planted Big Beef and Jet Star and Celebrity, and almost every one of the lower tomatoes had blossom end rot. Really discouraging to dot all the I's and cross the T's and then throw away many of the first tomatoes.

Blossom end rot is when the bottom of the tomato as it grows develops a brown spot on the bottom. The tomato will grow bigger and bigger and the brown spot will grow as well. The tomato above the brown seems to taste OK, but most of the tomato gets pitched.

My best way of solving the problem was to water all our tomatoes with a solution of calcium nitrate. I simply added calcium nitrate granules into our fertilizer system, and it distributed the chemical to every tomato. But this year for some reason when I added the calcium nitrate granules to the watering system. it plugged up our dripper lines. which we then had to replace. Lots of work and added expense. So I decided to try another approach and use a foliar spray. I recently ordered a quart of concentrated "Rot Stop Blossom End Rot Spray". There were a number of kinds, so I chose a brand name I was familiar with. I simply need to mix the concentrate with water in my hand sprayer and spray my tomato plants.

The problem is it's late enough in the season and fungus has taken its nasty bite, and many of our tomatoes which were affected by blossom end rot are through for the season. I am going to spray some though. The odd thing about the blossom end rot is my big heirloom tomatoes aren't affected at all, while the smaller heirlooms and hybrids all have blossom end rot. Not sure why.

My plans for next summer are to incorporate calcium nitrate when I plant the tomatoes and from then on. I usually mix a solution of 9-45-15 fertilizer and water the new transplants in with this. Next spring I'll add a little calcium nitrate to this solution. My plans are to add a couple Tums up by the soil surface and let the calcium leech down as well. I'll also hand water our tomatoes with the calcium nitrate when tomato plants are in full bloom and then weekly after that. Don't overdo the calcium nitrate.

A soil test is highly recommended to adjust the ph of the soil to 6.3 to 6.8 for tomatoes. Little paper sacks for your soil sample cam be picked up at the extension office in Jackson or Cape or probably some garden supply centers. Fall is a good time to adjust your ph rather than waiting until spring.