Rotten Tomatoes

[Alstep]

I've got a nice tomato patch with lots of green tomatoes that are starting to ripen. When they turn red, they turn black on the bottom and are rotten inside. Every one of them.
What's going on here? Some kind of disease? Anything I can spray to prevent this?
We make sauce and freeze tomatoes for the next year. Sure hate to loose the whole crop.

[sparky45]

https://www.almanac.com/pest/blossom-end-rot

[Winger Ed.]

I've seen boxes of 'tomato food' in garden sections, and heard putting your crushed/empty egg shells in the dirt does a lot of good.

[BK7saum]

When I have had this happen, it was really hot and humid/wet (lots of rain). I don't know that it was anything other than climate and weather affecting the ripening tomatoes.

[JoeG52]

It sounds like blossom end rot. That is cause by a lack of calcium. Give the soil a good dose of lime.

[hc18flyer]

I think a virus can cause it too, are the leaves always a little crinkled? I have 2 'Roma' type, that were crinkled from the start, and they have a rot starting where the blossom was? My other tomatoes are fine, right next to the others. hc18flyer

[MaryB]

I got hit with BER this year... grasshoppers are leaving bites on the tomatoes letting a fungus attack plus they were drought stressed all thru June and July and that alone can cause it. Grasshoppers are a plague this year...

[HWooldridge]

It sounds like blossom end rot. That is cause by a lack of calcium. Give the soil a good dose of lime.

^^This^^

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

As Mary said, drought stress. That is the main cause of BER.

[Smoke4320]

Add fast acting lime

[Polymath]

More egg shells. Like 1/2 cup crushed eggs shells per pot. You cannot overdo the calcium.
They also need consistent watering, but not have their feet wet. (no standing water on top of the container.)

[Randy Bohannon]

Bag of bone meal will get the calcium to the plant the fastest and maybe save the rest .

[Froogal]

I've got a nice tomato patch with lots of green tomatoes that are starting to ripen. When they turn red, they turn black on the bottom and are rotten inside. Every one of them.
What's going on here? Some kind of disease? Anything I can spray to prevent this?
We make sauce and freeze tomatoes for the next year. Sure hate to loose the whole crop.

Yes. It is called "blossom end rot". Happened to us a few years ago. The cure was epsom salts. I don't remember the exact formula, but it seems that we used 1/3 cup of epsom salts dissolved in one gallon of water for each tomato plant, poured on the dirt around the plant, and repeated every other day for several days. It worked and worked very well. I googled "blossom end rot" and found the epsom salts trick in an article posted by a university horticultural department. Don't remember which university.

[Hannibal]

Bag of bone meal will get the calcium to the plant the fastest and maybe save the rest .

I used to have problems with blossom end rot. I started adding a few tablespoons of bone meal to the holes when I transplant seedlings and I've never had it happen again.

[brassrat]

It seems too much water can cause the rot. I added Epsom Salt as well as cut back water. This was last year, this year is a disaster with something eating the plants ans something robbing the few tomatoes