What To Do When You See Blossom-End Rot
Do your tomatoes look as if they are rotting from the bottom up? The culprit is probably blossom-end rot! This frustrating problem can appear to come out of nowhere. Here are top tips for preventing blossom-end rot on your tomatoes and other garden plants.
What Is Blossom-End Rot?
Are your tomatoes developing a dark, sunken spot on their bottoms? Unfortunately, they likely have blossom-end rot. It’s a common problem for fruiting garden plants such as tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and squash. Blossom-end rot is a disorder in which the tissue of the blossom end (the “bottom”) of the fruit breaks down and rots, thus reducing the quality of the fruit and the overall yield from the plant.
What Causes Blossom-End Rot?
Thankfully, blossom-end rot isn’t caused by a disease or pest. Instead, it is the result of a lack of calcium in the plant. This lack of calcium may be due to low calcium levels in the soil or—more often—soil that is over- or underwatered. Wide fluctuations in soil moisture reduce the plant’s ability to take up calcium from the soil. When the demand for calcium exceeds the supply, the tissues in the fruit break down, and blossom-end rot occurs.
In addition to watering issues, calcium deficiency during fruit formation may also be caused by:
- Too much nitrogen-heavy fertilizer
- Improper soil pH
- High salt levels in the soil
- Damage to plants’ roots
Awareness of these causes when caring for tomatoes and other garden plants is the best way to prevent blossom-end rot.
Some blossom-end rot is more or less normal in the first tomatoes of the season since the plants are usually under stress during the initial fruit set. It also tends to happen more often in plants grown in containers, as the soil is more susceptible to fluctuations in moisture. In other words, the plants dry out too much, and their fruit is affected.
If the damaged portion of the fruit is small, you can trim it off and enjoy the rest of the fruit. Hopefully, the problem will fade with the prevention tips below!
Signs of Blossom-End Rot
Usually, blossom-end rot appears while the fruit is still green or ripening, so it often affects the first fruits formed on the plants.
Blossom-end rot starts with a small, depressed, water-soaked area on the blossom end of the fruit (the bottom, opposite the stem). The spot starts off looking like a dark bruise. As the spot enlarges, it becomes sunken and turns black or dark leathery brown in color. Half the fruit may eventually be affected.
Catherine Boeckmann
ADVERTISEMENT
I grind egg shells in my coffee grinder and spread them in the dirt and around the base of the tomato plants. In the dirt provides the need calcium; around the base is a deterrent to any bugs. I also give all my vegetables a good dose of used coffee grounds.
I do the same do you know how much you use per plants.
Coffee grounds contain nitrogen. Also cold black diluted coffee is good to use. I grow tropical Fiddle Leaf Fig plants and use diluted coffee on them.
I buy cheap calcium tablets from the dollar store and dissolve them in warm water to treat my tomatoes. No blossom end rot.
I put all my egg shells in the dirt. The calcium is good for them.
Egg shells are a great source of calcium, though they are better off being crushed and thrown in the compost pile, as they’ll break down a lot more easily there!
Just pour milk on ground, have never had this problem.
I put a handful of Crushed Oyster Shells and a handful of Epsom Salt right in the hole with the plant. Works and it's cheap. Calcium and Magnesium.
This can also be caused by extreme hot weather...
There is One Cure/ Solution for Blossom "End-Rot". Since it is the Result of Calcium (Ca) and Phosphorous (P) Deficiency - Simply Add a Small Amount of Organic Bone Meal to the Top of the soil before watering - Weekly.
