Tomato duo
Creative Commons License photo credit: tillwe

Right now my garden is full of the best fruits and vegetables of the season. We get a bit of a slow start here since our last frost is the last week of May so my tomato plants have just started putting on fruit. This year I am prepared but last year as my tomatoes were just starting to turn red I noticed a problem.

The bottoms of the tomatoes had large sunken spots that looked like big sores. As they ripened more, the lower half of the tomatoes looked rotten. I found out I had blossom end rot and it is caused by a lack of calcium. When the fruit doesn’t get enough calcium it starts to break down. There are lots of ways to help avoid this like managing the soil pH, making sure you are watering consistently and not over using fertilizers.

I told my mom about the problem I was having and she told me what my grandma used to cure blossom end rot. Are you ready for this? She used TUMS® tablets. You know, the antacid tablets that have calcium in them. She crushed up a couple of tablets and sprinkled them around each plant every other day and watered them in. I guess it worked because of the calcium in the TUMS® would soak into the soil then be taken up by the plants.

I haven’t seen any sign of blossom end rot this year but I purchased a bottle of antacids, just in case.

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