blossom end rot?

Hi

This is my first garden ever and I just started seeing the first tiny green tomato fruits last week. Is this the beginning of blossom end rot? Or is it just leftover stamen stuck on the bottom? If it is blossom end rot, how would I add calcium to the soil to prevent more fruits from developing this issue?

That looks like a cute little tomato belly button to my newbie eyes.

Ditto Megan. But if you do need to add calcium, a quick fix is calcium supplements dissolved in water. Tums will work as they are calcium carbonate. For a longer term solution use crushed eggshells and/ or powdered milk.

I have wondered about using Tums as a calcium supplement. Is there any general dilution / spreading rule for those? (Or, to be more simple, can you spread too much calcium???)

I used powdered milk for the first time this year. Just sprinkled a TBSP or a bit more on the surface and scratched it in. We shall see if it helps.

We seem to be having a problem with blossom end rot on our wonderful sweet rainbow bell peppers! I need to fix this as soon as possible and am intrigued by the Tums recommendation. Has anyone tried it?

No, but I'm about to... my tomatoes FINALLY started blooming!

junequilt wrote:We seem to be having a problem with blossom end rot on our wonderful sweet rainbow bell peppers! I need to fix this as soon as possible and am intrigued by the Tums recommendation. Has anyone tried it?

Yes, it is calcium carbonate which is one of the forms in the quick acting garden calcium supplements. They also have elementary calcium (probably from oyster shell) and magnesium. I used Tums two weeks ago and the new tomatoes coming on show no sign of BER.

I thought BER was a result of too little/much water?
Last year I lost a lot of tomatoes to BER, and since I only grow in containers, I placed the pot with the tomato plant inside another larger container and just kept that container full of water. Man, that plant really drank a ton of water, but I never had another tomato die of BER.
This year, so far only one tomato was affected. (My first one of the summer, too. )

coot wrote:I thought BER was a result of too little/much water?

This is what I thought too. I've never heard about the Tums thing. We have TONS of those around the house since the hubby has acid reflux very bad (3 large bottles the last I checked, we should buy some stock). I'm assuming this is more of a quick fix and not long lasting?

It's both moisture and calcium enduced. Tums are a quick fix, for a longer acting solution, use crushed oyster shell or egg shells. But if you have evidence of rot, Tums will fix it up quickly. I add a calcium/magnesium supplement to my gardens as well.

http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/factsheets/Tomato_BlossRt.htm

i believe too little/much watering affects the absorption of minerals.

I've tried very hard to keep up with watering and none of my plants ever showed signs of dehydration, but we did have an intense heat wave a few weeks ago, so who knows. I think I'll buy some Tums!

I thought it would be interesting to find out how much water a tomato plant might use per day under very hot, sunny conditions. We have two EarthBoxes and each box contains two tomato plants. While we were enduring 95-degree days, I decided to measure the water missing from a box's reservoir after 24 hours. Much to my surprise, I had to add approximately 6 quarts of water to each box to bring them up to the previous fill level. That means each tomato plant used approximately 3 quarts of water during that one day. True, some of the water may have evaporated, but EarthBoxes have a relatively closed system, so my guess is, the plants used most of it. That's a whole lot of water!

It also reinforces the concept that mulch is a very good thing, since it helps prevent surface evaporation.