4 Steps to Stop Tomato Rot
There are few things worse in gardening than starting a tomato plant from seed, nurturing that plant thru all the stages of development only to find that the tomatoes on the plant are rotting from the bottom side of the fruit. That is Blossom End Rot, AKA, Tomato Rot. Thankfully, by following the 4 steps in this blog, you can stop tomato rot and prevent it from ever happening again in your garden.
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What is Causing Tomato Rot in Your Garden?
Blossom end rot, or tomato rot, is caused by a calcium deficiency in the plant and fruit. But wait, don’t go out and buy calcium supplements for your soil or special calcium sprays that claim to solve this problem. The issue is not that your soil doesn’t have calcium, the problem is that the plant is UNABLE to take up that calcium from the soil.
What Should You Do RIGHT NOW If You Have Blossom End Rot on Your Tomatoes?
Well, unfortunately, the problem can’t be reversed on existing fruit where it is present so you should just clip those fruit off the plant and add it to your compost pile. From this point forward, we want to focus all the calcium being delivered to the plants from the root system to the fruit that is not affected by tomato rot.
The good news is, by following the steps below, we can prevent this from happening with the rest of the fruit on our plant and any other tomato plants we grow in our garden.
Stop Blossom End Rot in Tomatoes – Step 1: Consistent, Correct, Watering
The tomato rot we see in our gardens is almost always caused by uneven watering. Garden beds or containers that alternate between super moist and super dry conditions will most certainly cause tomato rot. The easiest way to fix this is by watering consistently and correctly.
The best way to ensure our plants are being watered consistently and correctly is to install a soaker hose irrigation system. This will ensure that changes in moisture levels in our soil will not result in blossom end rot. Remember that over watering can also cause blossom end rot, so be sure to take advantage of current technology and add a smart watering timer to your soaker hose system. This will automatically adjust your water delivery based on rainfall in your area to ensure your system is not over watering.
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Stop Blossom End Rot in Tomatoes – Step 2: Mulch, Mulch, Mulch
Adding organic mulch to our garden beds is a best practice that will keep moisture in our soil and won’t allow it to evaporate out too quickly. In addition to that, it will also keep the weeds down in our garden beds. Add 2-4” of mulch to your garden bed to ensure you are keeping moisture in your soil and preventing the soil from drying out before it is watered again.
My mulch of choice is chopped hardwood mulch. But you could use leaves, grass clippings, sawdust or just plain old compost. In addition to keeping moisture in and weeds down, there is another super benefit of using mulch in our garden beds. We can remove it at the end of the growing season and add it to our compost pile with the rest of the end-of-season garden waste. This will produce super-good compost that we can use to amend our garden beds with before the next growing season.
Stop Blossom End Rot in Tomatoes – Step 3: Prune Your Tomato Plants
Ok. We have removed the affected fruit and we have added a soaker hose watering system. We have mulched our garden beds to ensure that we are keeping the moisture in the soil as long as possible. What else should we do?
Prune your tomato plants to prevent blossom end rot. That’s right. We do not want to waste the calcium being delivered from our soil to our plants on excess leaves and fruit. Prune off those leaves that are not helping to provide food for your fruits and prune your tomato plants correctly to ensure we maximize the fruit and keep it healthy.
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Stop Blossom End Rot in Tomatoes – Step 4: Avoid Damaging Established Root Systems
After we have done all this work to ensure we don’t have blossom end rot, the last thing we want to do is damage the root structure of our plants. This could cause stress in the root structure of the plant resulting in issues with nutrient delivery to the plant, and resulting in tomato rot.
If we are going to grow our tomatoes up a stake or trellis that needs to be inserted into the garden soil to anchor it, then we need plan ahead. We should insert the stake or trellis into the soil at or before the timing of planting to ensure we don’t damage established roots by driving these through the root system.
If you already have an established tomato plant but no way to support it as it grows larger, don’t worry. We have a solution for that too. See the link below for building a trellis that works great for tomatoes. It can also be attached to your raised garden bed without disturbing the root systems of your plants!
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Avoid Doing Permanent Damage to Your Soil
We have all seen the quick fixes that are published to “fix” blossom end rot. All of these are, in some form, advocating for adding chemicals to your soil in an attempt to increase the calcium content of the soil.
PLEASE do not add anything to your soil with the intent of increasing the calcium levels in your soil without first getting a soil test.
Adding products to your soil to increase the calcium levels is dangerous without understanding your soil Ph. Adding garden lime or other products to your soil with the intent of increasing calcium levels (that were ok to begin with) could throw off the Ph level of your soil creating a new problem that could negatively affect all the other plants in that garden bed.
If you are convinced that the issue is calcium levels in your soil, get a soil test first. Finding a soil test is simple. Open a new browser window, go to google and type in “soil test (state you live in)”. Just like this:
By getting a soil test first, before adding anything to your soil, you will fully understand the impact of that addition and can be sure that what you are adding will not have any negative impact on any of the other vegetables growing in your garden.
CONCLUSION:
If you have tomato rot right now. Follow these steps to fix it immidietly and ensure all your future tomatoes ripen perfectly.
Remove the fruits with blossom end rot. You could cut way the rotted section and eat the tomato if you wish.
Add a soaker hose watering system or create a manual watering system/schedule that you strictly follow to ensure 1 inch of water a week is being delivered to your tomato plants.
Add mulch to your garden bed. This will keep that moisture in your soil and prevent it from evaporating before it has soaked down to the tomato plant roots.
Prune your tomato plants. Make sure that all those nutrients, and calcium, are going to the fruits and aren’t wasted.
Add a trellis or structure to support your plants but make sure you DON’T damage the established root system of your tomato plants when you install it.
I really hope this information helps you to stop any blossom end rot you are experiencing now and gives you the tools you need to ensure it never happens again in your garden.
Riley
