Planting Tomatoes

Spring is in the air, well most days, and it's time to start thinking about the summer garden. Even when cramped for space, most of us will want to have a pot or two of tomatoes on the deck or patio. There are few "musts" about growing those delicious home grown tomatoes, here's one of them.

Blossom-end rot (BED) is a deformity that occurs at the blossom end of all fruiting vegetables and is particularly common in tomatoes. BED begins as a watery looking area adjacent to the blossom. In short order, the lesions enlarge, become brown or black in color and take on a leathery appearance which covers the bottom half of the fruit. While edible, the unaffected upper half of the fruit is small and not worth keeping. BED is not caused by a pest or parasite; rather, it is the result of a calcium deficiency in the plant. All plants require sufficient quantities of calcium to develop correctly and BED is a sure sign that your tomatoes are not absorbing enough calcium to develop correctly. As most often is the case, a pound or two of prevention is worth many pounds of cure. This is particularly true of BED because, once the plant is mature, it is difficult or impossible to reverse the situation. So, before planting your tomatoes make sure that the soil you plant them in is not deficient in calcium. I assume that the soil will be deficient in calcium and simply add a little calcium to each of the prepared beds in which the tomatoes will be planted. One can add lime, gypsum or egg shells to increase the calcium content in the soil. Egg shells take a long time to break down. Lime and gypsum must be used with caution because both materials may make the soil to alkaline for ideal plant growth. In any case, I add a small handful of ground-up oyster shells to each hole in which I plant a tomato seedling, mixing it in well with the other materials used to enrich the soil (worm castings, aged manure, coffee grounds and rotted oak leaves). One also can add four to six pounds of powdered oyster shells per one hundred square feet of soil to accomplish the same goal. By the way, it's not too early to plant those tomatoes if you live in the coastal regions of central California. If in doubt, cover the plants at night with something like a five gallon plastic bucket if there is a chance of frost. Happy gardening!