Ten Pound Tomato Grow Organic – Eat Better

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Tomato Invasion Newsletter #4

“A hard frost is coming tonight.”

The weather reporter didn’t say maybe. It’s getting cold. Tonight.

The reporter didn’t tell you to get out and save your tomatoes. He should have.

What happens to tomatoes during a hard frost?

Tomatoes can make it through a little light frost as long as it doesn’t last all night. A hard frost can and will kill the plant. And if the plant burns down under a hard frost, it’s not likely you can save your tomatoes either.

I’ve seen tomato plants destroyed completely in one night of hard frost. And I’ve seen a tomato plant survive into February because it was grown right next to the house. The house moderated the temperature, creating a slightly warmer micro-climate than the general winter air, protecting the plant. I left it in the ground hoping the tomatoes would get ripe. They didn’t.

How do you save your tomatoes from a hard frost?

There are two things you can do immediately to save at least some of your tomatoes left on the bush late in the season.

Harvest any of the tomatoes that show any red or pink. Place them in a paper bag along with an apple and keep them on the kitchen counter. These should ripen up in a few days. Check them every day because they can over-ripen quickly if you let them. The apple releases ethylene gas which hastens the ripening process.

Pull your plants out of the ground, carefully shake the excess dirt off the roots and hang the plants upside down in the garage or garden shed. Anywhere it won’t get below freezing works although warmer is better. It’s probably too warm inside the house though. The tomatoes that are already fairly mature and dark green will probably ripen all the way to red. The tomatoes that are only pale green may not ever ripen.

Why bother saving them?

The main reason I try to save them is because late in the season, most tomatoes don’t get ripe anyway. So we’ve already eaten most of the fresh tomatoes we’ve harvested and we’re just hoping for a few more before the cold weather hits.

These late season tomatoes often have wonderful flavor. I’ve never read or heard anyone else say it, but I think a couple light frosts help bring out and enhance the flavor of the late tomatoes. Here in Central California we don’t usually get a hard frost until December, though that’s certainly not a hard-and-fast rule.

We typically don’t get ripe tomatoes after late October or early November depending on the weather. You’ll need to study some weather records or talk to an old-time gardener in your area to find out how late you can expect to harvest ripe tomatoes. Once you’ve hit that date, every ripe tomato you get from then on is a treasure to be savored.

What if you don’t have the space to hang a bunch of tomato plants?

You can always pick the darkest green tomatoes along with the red-tinged ones and put them in the paper bag too. I’ve had some success ripening the dark green ones. They may not have quite the same flavor as vine-ripened tomatoes though.

If you only have room to hang a few plants so the tomatoes can ripen on the vine, you’ll have to pick your favorite plants and give up on the rest. So once you’ve chosen the few you’ll hang in garage, pick the rest of the tomatoes off the other plants, and place them in a paper bag or two along with an apple in each bag.

Some of the tomatoes in the bag will ripen and some won’t. The ones that do are like fudge icing on a chocolate cake. They make you feel special as you eat them.

Won’t the tomatoes rot before you get to eat them?

It’s possible that some of the tomatoes could rot in the bag. By checking on the tomatoes in the bag daily, you’ll make sure that most of the tomatoes don’t rot. Removing the ripe tomatoes every day helps protect the rest of the tomatoes.

In the case of saving your late season tomatoes, there are only a few things to keep in mind. Make sure you watch the weather report nightly so you can get out and save your plants before they get permanently damaged by a hard frost. Clear a place in the garage so you can hang your plants upside down when it’s time to do so. And make sure you have a couple paper bags and some apples on hand to force the last of your late season tomatoes to ripen.

And you could always take a couple of the last tomatoes that ripen by the TV station so the weather reporter will think of all those not-yet-ripened tomatoes before the first hard frost and give fair warning to all those gardeners out there hoping for one more ripe tomato.

[ad#Adsense top left post]Tomato Invasion Newsletter #2

From a distance an iceberg floating out in a bay doesn’t look all that big. Floating serenely, the sun glinting off its surface, moving slowly with the tide, an iceberg makes its way out to sea. There’s no sign warning about the danger lurking below the surface, only the beauty shining above.

From a distance, I thought my tomatoes were all beautiful too, just like that iceberg. As I got a little closer look though, some blossom end rot became visible. One tomato had a dime-sized brown spot on the blossom end (opposite the stem) of the tomato and the other was worse. After cutting into the tomatoes, they both ended up in the compost bucket, uneaten. They both had extensive ugly rotten areas inside. If I hadn’t already seen blossom end rot in other gardens, I might have been surprised by this. Unfortunately, I’ve seen it a few times in the last 30 years.

What is blossom end rot?
Blossom end rot causes the fruit of tomato, pepper, and eggplant to rot on the inside, starting with a dime-sized or smaller brown or tan spot on the end of the fruit opposite the stem (the blossom end). On tomatoes, it shows up right on the blossom end of the fruit. On peppers, it shows up on the side near the blossom end. Blossom end rot often ends up as an ugly black spot on the fruit, up to half the size of the entire fruit.

It’s easy to lose over half your crop to blossom end rot. While there are things you can do to alleviate the problem and make it go away, prevention really is the best plan.

Why does blossom end rot start?
Calcium deficiency causes blossom end rot. In order for the cells of the fruit to grow properly, they need lots of calcium. If calcium isn’t drawn up by the plant’s roots and moved up through the plant all the way to the fruit, blossom end rot results.

This doesn’t mean your soil doesn’t have calcium in abundance. It may simply not be available for your plants to use due to other mineral deficiencies. Or the plant may not be receiving  enough water. Tomatoes require regular deep watering. Tomatoes don’t like to go totally dry before the next watering either.

When does blossom end rot show up?
Most of the time, if your tomatoes or peppers are going to get blossom end rot, it shows up right away, on the first fruit of the season. Although this can be disappointing, it’s best to get your wake-up call early. The sooner you know what’s going on, the sooner you can start taking care of the problem.

It really doesn’t matter when blossom end rot shows up though. The cure is always the same thing. Although it’s best to prevent blossom end rot, if it shows up despite your best efforts, you need a plan set in place ahead of time so you can leap into action immediately.

Can you get rid of blossom end rot once it starts?
You can try. Ask four different organic gardeners how they deal with blossom end rot, and you’ll probably end up with four different ways to get rid of it. I’ve got my own way of dealing with it. My plan seems to work for me. It may or may not work for you, based on your local soil conditions.

First, I make sure I deep water every 4 to 6 days. More often if it’s extremely hot, less often if the weather has been mild. Before I water, I dig down with my hand 3 or 4 inches into the soil near each tomato plant. If it’s still moist, I wait a day and check again, in another spot. Tomatoes like even deep watering. They don’t like to get thirsty and they don’t like wet feet either. That means you need good drainage in the area you plant your tomatoes.

Next, I give them a good spray with some liquid kelp early in the morning. The plants absorb the micro-nutrients quickly this way. Liquid kelp doesn’t contain calcium so it’s not going to fix the problem all on its own. However it does help feed the plant other needed nutrients. Think of it like giving the plant it’s vitamins. One day of vitamins won’t do much. Regular applications boost the health of the plants.

Here’s where it gets a little tricky. If you have some Tomatoes Alive organic fertilizer from Gardens Alive, feed some to your tomatoes now. The new version of Tomatoes Alive has some added calcium and magnesium. Just what the plant doctor ordered. If you don’t, you need to get some organic fertilizer with added calcium into the soil around your plants right away.

And finally, you need to make some compost tea if you don’t have a batch ready, and spray your tomatoes, early in the morning. In fact, you can mix in the liquid kelp and give your plants a double-boost all in one shot.

Unfortunately, contrary to popular belief, foliar application of calcium probably won’t help. The plant actually needs to draw the calcium up through the root system, all the way out to the fruit. This is because the entire plant needs calcium in order to grow new cells properly. That means the stems, the flowers, the branches, and the fruit.

Even if you do all the steps listed above, you still may lose 50% or more of your fruit to blossom end rot. Once the conditions are in place for it to happen, it’s hard to combat. You’re much better off preventing blossom end rot in the first place. However, don’t give up. Due to our long growing season in the San Joaquin Valley of California where I live, even when I’ve lost up to three weeks harvest, eventually the plants recover and produce good fruit the rest of the growing season.

I’ve heard reports of people grinding up calcium tablets and digging them into the soil under the plants. I’m thinking you would be better off picking up a bag of ground oyster shells from the feed store and trying that. I’ve not used either myself. If you choose to do either of these things, I’d love to hear how it works. Leave a comment below or email me using the contact form.

How can blossom end rot be prevented?
By using a few simple strategies you should avoid blossom end rot altogether. First you need to get your soil tested. If you don’t test your soil, it’s like trying to lasso a pig in the dark. You know it’s out there and you keep tossing your rope. No matter how hard you try, you really don’t know which direction to toss it. Your chances of catching the pig are small to none.

If you don’t know what types of minerals and nutrients are in your soil and whether they are in the form your plants can take up, how do you know which types of nutrients to add to your soil? You don’t. So go ahead and find out what your soil really needs by taking a sample to a lab for testing.

How can I make sure my plants get plenty of calcium they can actually use?
There are few things you can do in order to make sure your soil has enough calcium for your plants.

Maintain your soil pH around 6.5. If you have acidic soil in your garden, add some lime. It’s full of calcium and increases the ratio of calcium to other competitive ions making it more available for your plants.

If your soil is alkaline like mine in California you don’t want to add lime. Instead add some pelletized gypsum. It’s loaded with calcium and balanced by some sulphur. In theory, it’s pH neutral. In practice, I think it lowers the pH of my soil, which is a good thing. Now my soil will never get all the way down to 6.5, but I simply can’t worry about it. As long as I know my soil has enough calcium and magnesium so my plants grow well and I don’t see any blossom end rot, I’m happy.

If you were using chemical fertilizers, which I don’t recommend, I would tell you to use nitrate nitrogen fertilizer, not ammonium nitrogen fertilizer. Excess ammonium ions reduce the uptake of calcium into your plants, contributing to blossom end rot. And no matter what type of fertilizer you use, organic or chemical, don’t over-fertilize tomatoes. You’ll end up with a ton of plant growth and no fruit.

And last but not least, avoid drought stress at all costs. Water at least one inch to one and half inches of water a week. I’d rather check the soil and water when the plant needs it. I find in my area of Central California where it gets above 100℉ for a good part of the summer, I need to water every 3 to 6 days. I water deeply without saturating the soil.

But I’ve never seen blossom end rot in my garden. Why worry?
If you’ve never experienced blossom end rot, that’s great. However, it’s always smart to be aware of what causes it and how to prevent it. Because by implementing the basic soil preparation strategies talked about in this article, your plants will continue to thrive and hopefully you’ll never see blossom end rot in your garden.

And if you do end up experiencing blossom end rot in your garden, you’ll know why it’s occurring and how to deal with it.

Summary…
Just knowing what blossom end rot is helps a great deal if you see it in your garden or a friend’s. By recognizing it, and knowing that a calcium deficiency causes it, you’re miles ahead of the average gardener. Of course, you’ll be able to tell your friend exactly the steps to take so they can get back on the road to ripe juicy tomatoes that look and taste great.

Remember, an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. Keep a bag of lime or gypsum around (based on your soil type) so you can treat your soil to the proper dose regularly. Doing this one thing can help ensure you’ll never see blossom end rot again in your own garden.

Just like a beautiful iceberg, even though your garden appears perfect above the ground, it’s what’s going on under the surface of the soil that really matters. As long as you know how to avoid possible danger lurking beneath the surface, you’ll be able to enjoy the view and the fruits of your labor too.