Something's Rotten...

See the sad, little tomato above?  This little guy has blossom-end rot (let's call it BER).  If you've had it (and you likely have) you know that this tomato will never properly ripen, nor will it be edible. Every year, I plant a blossom-end rot resistant variety (Parks Whopper Improved).  When I plant, I put the tomatoes deep into the soil or trench them, and place a calcium source (half a 1000 mg. calcium supplement, a calcium-based antacid, or finely-ground eggshells) in the hole with the plant. I thought that was it, that the plants were now protected from this problem, after all, BER is caused by a calcium deficiency.  That's true, but all the calcium in the world won't prevent BER if you have inadequate, irregular watering.  Too little water interferes with the plants ability to transport calcium into the tissues of the plant (and, as you may know, an over-abundance of water can cause fruit to split).  So this is a two-tiered problem, caused by calcium deficiency and inadequate watering.  (Having a resistant variety is good, too, as is a 4-year crop rotation).  By the way, peppers (especially bell) can also suffer from BER.
I will write more one day about the other reason I grow Whopper Improved...and other highly-disease resistant plants.

Wednesday Lagniappe: Preventing Late Blight

Got blightly tomatoes?  Me too.  Some ideas on blight prevention:

http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/preventing-late-blight?cm_mmc=facebook-_-OrganicGardening-_-Content-LearnGrow-_-blight

No more potato peels in my compost!

Heirlooms Break My Heart

Poor sick tomato. When I started gardening, I grew heirloom varieties, like Brandywine, Mr. Stripey, Mortgage Lifter and the like, but soon switched over to the most disease resistant varieties I could find because of problems with disease.  Well, I was recently seduced by "free" packets of organic, heirloom seeds and a healthy Mr. Stripey plant at a local plant sale (and I really like the taste and color of Mr. Stripey).  Big mistake.  The plants quickly succumbed to disease (which one?  I'm not sure, other than it did not have the symptoms of early blight), while my disease resistant Goliath and Whopper were still producing fruit and looking good- and they were all shoulder to shoulder in the same garden area.  Very disappointing.

How do you know if you have a disease resistant tomato?  Look for letters (like V, F, and T) after the name.  These stand in for the names of the diseases like verticillium wilt, fusarium wilt and tobacco mosaic virus (smokers should wash their hands before touching tomato plants to prevent spread of this last one from cigarettes with infected tobacco to the tomatoes).  Tomato diseases are many and varied and can be hard to diagnose, but two sources can help: your local Ag Extension Agent and the Plant Doctor at; http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/DiagnosticKeys/TomWlt/TomWiltKey.html

I am not exactly sure what disease affected the heirloom cherry tomato in the photo above.  When I shop for seeds, I look for descriptions like "most disease resistant"  and "highly disease resistant" and a long string of letters after the plant name!  No more free tomato seeds for me unless they are tough disease fighters!

Happy gardening!