Beginner Gardening: Cracks in my tomaotes, 1 by TXBBQ

TXBBQ wrote:
Thanks to all for your offerings and viewpoints. Firstly, (for dp72) I am not using "native" TX soil, which is terrible. I am using the Square Foot Gardening method from Mel Bartholomew's book "The All New Square Foot Gardening". Hence, I am using a custom-mix soil of blended compost, peat moss and coarse vermiculite. Last year was my first attempt, but I didn't get any tomatoes, as I didn't start until late May-Early June. And when I did, I was starting from seed. Didn't know it takes forever for tomatoes to grow that way. This year, I started seed in the house in February, and by late April, they were ready to transplant.

This year, I started on time (mid-April) after the last frost and my plants are doing marvelously. I planted the BHN444, a variety engineered at TX A&M and the BEST tasting tomato I have ever eaten. They've been growing to baseball and softball size Also I have Better Boys and Romas. The latter, I purposely started later and they're started to flower. The other two are producing like crazy even still, as you can see in the picture. I counted at least 2-dozen flowers coming out on both plants and I have about 6 turning red as well as about a 12 still green and half-a-dozen babies just fruiting. I am more inclined to agree with your thoughts about the extreme daytime heat vs nighttime temps. Plus we had a huge downpour of rain last week. So excess water could be contributing. Prior to this I haven't seen the splitting. Also I have been using Miracle-Gro liquid fertilizer twice-a-month.

So I'll try to be careful with over-watering, but they have to have at least a little water every day as long as the daily triple-digit-heat continues.

In addition to the tomatoes, we have lettuce, collard greens, cantaloupe and green bell-peppers. I also planted green beans but they're not doing well at all. Neither is my okra, which last year took over.

TXBBQ