I know I could go to a different thread for this, but I'd prefer to keep the Nebraska board humming. Some of my cherry tomatoes seem to be rotting on the vine. there will be black and near black dime sized spots on the bottom. Not on all of them, but some of them. Seems a lot of them are also cracking or being mushy. First year gardening, is this tomato blight (or whatever you call it) I always hear about?
Apologies for the late response, but is this what you were dealing with, XD40?
That's blossom end rot. You can minimize it by trying to maintain consistent soil moisture (mulch helps with this A LOT, so if you don't put chemicals on your lawn, try putting your grass clippings on all exposed soil in your garden beds), prevent calcium deficiency by conditioning your soil (you can do this with commercial mixes, lime, or save your egg shells in the kitchen, crush them up and use them to condition your garden bed - even dropping crushed shells into the hole before you plant the toms will help), and check that your pH is in the neighborhood of 6-7. Also, try planting several varieties of toms each year so you can compare the performance between the different types. You may have better luck with other varieties. Oh, and blossom end rot doesn't affect the whole fruit - when I encounter it, I just cut that part of the tom and use the rest of it for cooking/canning.
For cracking, are you seeing symptoms like this?
That's a result of significant fluctuations in soil moisture. If I had to guess, I'd say that you probably started seeing this in mid-late July and Aug when it gets really hot during the day? If you soak the tomato plants in watering, the plants and fruit will suck that water up and the fruit will expand. If the plant/fruit had been parched before your watering, the swelling will cause the cracks. You can minimize these effects by using a thick layer of mulch to protect the soil and try using soaker or driplines if you irrigate your garden beds. Hope that helps!
