First time growing tomatoes so forgive my ignorance. My tomatoes are rotting on the bottom!!! They are growing nicely and often. Getting direct light for most of the day on my balcony. The plant is growing leaves still and new young tomatoes are growing but within a week they start to rot on the bottom.

I do water everyday which since I logged on and started reading, might be the issue here but I have been responding to soil dryness as it has been a hot month or so in Brooklyn, NY.

Any help would be great!











Thanks!

Blossom end rot. You're either watering too much or not enough most likely. Try crushing up a big handful of tums with a pestle and mortar or blender or something that will turn it into a fine powder. Mix the big handful of powder into a watering can and fill it up, water your tomatoes with that and it should stop. You can also buy commercial blossom end rot treatments on Amazon if you don't want to do that. Most stores don't carry them in my experience.


More info https://www.gardeners.com/how-...

Indeed, blossom end rot is caused by an inability of the plant to process enough calcium. The standard response is to load up more calcium in the soil. Hence the Tums. Now, in a good sized plot, Tums will be expensive. Gypsum or ground limestone is a lot cheaper. But that only works if soil is seriously deficient in calcium. Most soils are not. Calcium uptake is connected to water uptake, so if something is interfering with water uptake, calcium uptake will suffer. Drought stress, soil moisture extremes, and damage to a plant's roots all can inhibit calcium uptake in this way. High concentrations of N, P, and K (e.g. over-fertilization) also does that. Strongly suggest you get a soil analysis, if you haven't yet.

DougL said:Indeed, blossom end rot is caused by an inability of the plant to process enough calcium. The standard response is to load up more calcium in the soil. Hence the Tums. But that only works if soil is seriously deficient in calcium. Most soils are not. Calcium uptake is connected to water uptake, so if something is interfering with water uptake, calcium uptake will suffer. Drought stress, soil moisture extremes, and damage to a plant's roots all can inhibit calcium uptake in this way. High concentrations of N, P, and K (e.g. over-fertilization) also does that. Strongly suggest you get a soil analysis, if you haven't yet.

Wrong, the Tums in a watering can is for a foliar feed. Foliar feeding calcium works. No need for paying $10-15 for shipping plus $15-50 for a soil test. OP said they were watering every day which is almost never OK for tomatoes, they should be watering every 3 or 4 days max unless it's very low humidity and very hot.

Apologies. I missed that you were recommending foliar feed, and that is true that foliar application of calcium is understood be helpful, even when soil calcium is adequate. Indeed, everyday watering is likely to be an issue here.

I get my soil tests free from my city. Just available in the last two years. I think they offer soil tests to reveal heavy metal pollution sites, and they give nutrient analyses just to make people want to get tested. I suspect the funds available for serious pollution mediation more than offsets the cost of the tests. I believe this is not uncommon. I'm surprised more gardeners don't do this.

If he can afford it/doesn't mind paying it's a nice thing to have. My and I'm guessing many peoples' problem would be all the areas are amended separately and at different dates/times, so if I wanted to test, I'd have to send in probably 5-10 samples. Not a problem for some people but if you have to pay for every single sample tested, even with the cheap prices it ends up crazy expensive when you can just throw down some more fertilizer and experiment based on plant symptoms.

Sorry repentantslide but ever source I have been able to find says calcium only travels up from plant roots in the plant's xylem; it does not move downward from the foliage in the plant's phloem, so foliar sprays are not an effective way of delivering calcium to the plants.

I agree that BER is caused by fluctuations in weather, temperature, fertilization practices and watering and usually occurs in the early part of the growing season. I also agree that a soil test is an important part of gardening. While there are some places where State Extensions or cities offer inexpensive tests, in Nebraska we have to have private labs do the tests. Mine still is only $15 and I send it in every other year. Good soil health and consistent watering, neither too much or not enough, will do a lot to make BER disappear.

OK I'll just go back to last year and tell my tomato plants and bell pepper plants that all stopped BER the instant I did the aforementioned after nearly 100% of the fruit being lost to it that they were lying and misleading me. It also stopped BER again this year but I did it earlier.

Articles can say whatever they want, if they have a problem with my real life experience I think I can take them in a fight.

With regard to foliar calcium sprays to prevent BER, I think research is so far somewhat inconclusive. But yes, various extension services do call it a myth. See for example
http://extension.missouri.edu/...
It's your real life experience against theirs, I guess. Theirs comes with numbers.

No way do you need to have multiple samples analyzed to diagnose Ca deficiency. It is not highly mobile, and will not vary with date/time. You either got it or you don't.

It's worked for me multiple times and the couple people I've suggested it to so far. It corrected signs of calcium delivery issues in all of the plants I've put it on.

Thanks all! Very helpful!

Too wet!

RS is always 100% correct no matter what and always harsh, stern and argumentative with us all! What is so hard about playing nice?