Gardening & Landscaping
jallen76
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Bottom End Rot on Tomatoes
I am so frustrated with growing tomatoes. I've never had any luck. We moved and I started over with great composted soil in raised beds. The plant itself has been growing beautifully with lots of blooms and then lots of green tomatoes...I was so excited. We have had a super dry summer...no real rain for 7 weeks or so. I've been hitting the garden with our sprinkler on well water. About an hour every third day or as needed. It doesn't seem to be getting too much water or too little. I would err on the too little side, but nothing seems "wilted." I also have a layer of egg shells and grass mulch around the base of my tomatoes. I have harvested 10 tomatoes so far, and each one is not edible because the bottom is rotted out. I don't notice it at first when it is green, but as it matures, the bottom rots out. For the first time ever I also have a bad batch of horn worms on my tomatoes too. Gross. What can I do for my tomatoes at this point? Anyone?
Anyone can be cool, but awesome takes practice!
Re: Bottom End Rot on Tomatoes
I'm still new at tomatoes myself. What seemed to solve the problem for blossom end rot for me was filling the hole with ground egg shells for extra calcium before planting the tomatoes. Besides epsom salt, I've also had really good results with fish emulsion (available at Lowes or most gardening shops). You dilute it with water to add extra nutrients to the plant.
I just had my first experience with hornworms yesterday. From my research, natural predators seem to be the best defense so install a bird feeder nearby. Otherwise, pull them off as you find them. If you see one with white bumps all over it's body it might be infected with wasp eggs, so I've been told to let those hornworms live. When the wasps hatch, you'll have your own private army to fight off future hornworms. Hopefully it works!
My father do lots of gardening he had same issue once, he used Epsom salt as a fertilizer contain hydrated magnesium sulfate, two elements crucial to plant growth. But you must check/test your soil type because it?s effective in acid soils used especially for tomatoes.