Black bottoms on tomatoes and mushy yellow cucumbers??

Hello all,

I moved into this house two summers ago, and I'm having trouble with my vegetable bed. This year's tomatoes either had black bottoms, or split tops. What causes this? Also, my cucumbers refused to turn green and ripen. Each cuc would start out okay and then turn yellow and get all wrinkly and sickly looking. I tried leaving them out for the squirrels and even they wouldn't take them! ;)

Last year I had a mold problem with my zucchinis, so I am thinking that this garden bed is now shot...any suggestions?

Denine,

I can't address your cucumber problem but your tomatoes sound as if they had Blossom End Rot. Here is a link to an explanation by Dr. Carolyn Male of BER. http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/291012/
Don't give up. Your garden may need some amending with compost. Tomatoes are heavy feeders. Do you mulch? If not try using straw or leaves which will preserve the moisture and also break down over the winter to help make better soil. If you have access to some manure you can add that this fall. If you add it in the spring make sure it is not fresh manure - at least a year or two old. Good luck!

It might be that the sun was too hot for your cucumbers. Did you have a hot summer?

You might want to get your soil tested to get started. My soil is low in calcium and I was told to add a generous scoop of ground up sea shells to each hole I dug for tomatoes and peppers. These 40 to 50 lb. sacks are usually fed to chickens to ensure a hard shell. It worked great on the tomatoes and the peppers have improved, but I think I'll add 2 scoops to them next year.

Gardadore is certainly correct, the more compost the better! Leaves should be in plentiful this time of year. Just make sure that the yards you get the leaves from haven't been sprayed with any toxic chemicals. Grass clippings are good too. You may have people that board horses near you and would be very willing to get rid of some of it. Any animal manure except pets or human is great as long as it has had some time to compost before you use it. Also, planting winter rye when your garden is done is a good because it adds a lot of roughage when you plow it under in the spring. It even helps you get into your garden earlier due to its massive root system which sops up a lot of water. Good luck to you!

I had the same problem this summer and i found out it was a calcium deficiency. was told to sprinkle powdered milk all around the the dirt bed of the tomatoes and cut off all of the bad leaves and get rid of the bad fruit.

And dont you know that all of the rest of my tomatoes were saved. Jiucy ripe and plump. both my cherry and Roma tomatoes plants where as good as new. You can use regular milk with water too 1:2 ratio.

Hope it helps you i know it i for me.
good luck

Elaine =}

Denine,

Regarding your tomatoes, the others have shared that blossom end rot usually appears on bottoms -- but your photo shows a dark spot that doesn't look leathery as usually is the case with BER. The black ends could also be bruising, sunscald, anthracnose, or cottony rot. Read more about these possibilities: http://www.tomatodirt.com/blossom-ends-got-soft.html.

Tomato cracks most often relate to watering issues: tomato plants get too much water too fast; a tomato’s interior grows quickly as it absorbs the extra water from rain or disproportionate watering, but it expands too fast; the tomato skin can’t stretch to accommodate the extra fluid; cracking alleviates pressure.

Conditions that encourage cracking: warm, wet weather, wet weather that follows a dry period, or excessive watering that follows a dry period.

To prevent cracking, keep plants evenly watered and mulched. Apply a balanced fertilizer. More on tomato cracks here: http://www.tomatodirt.com/tomato-cracks.html.

Hope this helps!

As for your tomatoes, they looked exactly how mine did in the beginning stages of BER except it happened to me at the early growth stage and a few weeks later it was much worse. I'm no expert, but thats what it seems like to me. The pic i put up earlier was after i started to remedy the problem. When I spoke to a friend of mine who is an agriculturist, he told me that they needed calcium. And that the cracked fruit was from over watering. BER can also occur from too dry and too wet soil fluctuations and over fertilization.
But like i said...
This is info from the Department of Horticultural Science
College of Agriculture & Life Sciences
North Carolina State University

Blossom-end rot of tomatoes is a physiological disorder caused by a lack of sufficient calcium in the blossom end of the fruit. This disorder results in the decay of tomato fruits on their blossom end. Dry brown or tan areas the size of a dime, that grow to the size of a half dollar, characterize this disorder. This disorder is usually most severe following extremes in soil moisture (either too dry or too wet).

To reduce blossom-end rot in tomato, implement the following steps:

Lime tomato soils to pH 6.5 to 6.7 -- Home gardens not limed in the past 2 to 3 years will need 2 cups of lime for each plant. The lime should be worked into the soil 12 inches deep. To determine the exact amount of lime, send a soil sample to the NCDA&CS Agronomic Division, 4300 Reedy Creek Road, Raleigh, N. C. 27607-6465 for analysis and recommendations.

Fertilize properly -- Applying too much fertilizer at one time can result in blossom-end rot. Following soil test recommendations is the best way to insure proper fertilization. For home gardens not soil tested, apply 5 pints of 8-8-8 per 100 ft of row and work it thoroughly into the top 8 inches of soil.

Mulch plants -- Use straw, pine straw, decomposed sawdust, ground decomposed corn cobs, plastic, or newspapers. Mulches conserve moisture and reduce blossom-end rot. In extreme drought, plastic may increase blossom-end rot if plants are not watered.

Irrigate when necessary -- Tomato plants require about 1.5 inches of water per week during fruiting. This amount of water should be supplied by rain or irrigation. Extreme fluctuations in soil moisture result in a greater incidence of blossom-end rot.

Spray calcium -- The plants may be sprayed with a calcium solution at the rate of 4 lb of calcium nitrate or calcium chloride per 100 gal of water (or 4 level Tbs per gal of water). This spray should be applied 2 to 3 times a week, beginning at the time the second fruit clusters bloom. These materials can be mixed with the spray that is used for control of foliar diseases. Chelated calcium solutions also provide an excellent source of calcium. When using these chelates, follow label directions. Several foliar spray materials containing calcium are available and all work well for tomatoes.