Tomato Trouble!

[Hollie the Wollie]

After 5 long months since sowing the little seeds for my toms, the trial and tribulations of killing some off, toppling over tubs, flooding the containers, not pinch out or not to pinch out conumdrums, I was SO excited to see one of the toms finally starting to turn red!

But to my utter dismay and dissapointment this is what I found.....

Does anyone know what has got to them! :

[plot 7]

could be blight or blossom end rot. Blight means the end of the road, there is no cure, blossom end rot is caused by erattic watering.
Either way its not what my peppers have got. The skin is still intact but has just turned black instead of being green

[Reweed]

Hollie,

Went allotment today and all 8 of my tomato plants have the same problem, tops of every tomato has rotted away. Had a scout about and few peoples are the same.

So far this year i've had..... 1 tomato.

[Husker]

Hi Hollie. If I had to chose, I think it's blossom end rot. You may still get a harvest so don't give up. I know it's a real pain after all the hard work you've put in but every year is different so don't let this discourage you. Here we've had alot of rain, high heat, and high humidity, all the ingredients for all kinds of disease problems. I've got late blight in the toms and something I haven't ided in the melons and cucs. The thing that is most upsetting, and cause for words not fit to print is the splitting the toms are doing because of the rain. I'm having to pick a bit green and even so I'm loosing 15-20% to the skin splits. Oh well, that's the thing about gardening, no two years are the same. Even with all that's going wrong this year I'm already planning for next spring, so keep a smile and learn for next year.

[Hollie the Wollie]

Oh dear! I know you're in Iowa Husker but we have had similar weather (perhaps not as hot here) but it's been humid and muggy and hot and very wet. All the rot is starting at the bottom of the toms, as you can see in the pics, so Blossom end rot sounds just right... unfortunately.

So... should I just leave them be and pull off any that I see with these patches on? Can I throw the rotted toms in my composter or will that be bad?

After all this, I don't think I will do toms next year - I don't even like them!

[Hollie the Wollie]

I just "googled" Blossom End Rot and it is exactly what I have! The pictures show identical images! I think it's just the one container that is affected at the moment and I suspect it's the one that I flooded out the other month!

One of the tubs fell over in the wind and about 1lb of green toms fell off so I made a green tomato chutney. Should I use the green ones now that are not rotted yet?

[Husker]

If the b.e.r. is just in one pot you might want to isolate it from the others and keep an eye on it. The newer toms on that plant may not be affected, but if it looks like they are use the green one. Hopfully the rest of your plants will be ok.