Keep a close eye on your tomatoes, watch out for blossom end rot

Blossom end rot occurs when your tomato or pepper plants are not absorbing calcium fast enough to support maturing fruit.  The result is a rotting that occurs at the end of your tomato or pepper, and it ruins it completely. In my experience gardening in the southeast, this will very often occur with your first fruits, and excessive amounts of rain greatly increase your chances for it.

Acidic soils, like we have in the southeast, tend to chemically tie up calcium so that it is not as readily absorbed as quickly-growing tomato or pepper plants would like.  One solution is to add lime to your soil to chemically mediate the acidity.  Another is to add compost to dilute the acidity.  An old-fashioned trick that I have had some success with is to pour any expired milk onto your tomato plants.  Last year someone suggested that I break up an egg shell and put it in the planting hole for each of my tomatoes and after following this advice I had zero blossom end rot!  Too bad I forgot to do it this year, but I'm going to crush some shells and put them around my plants this weekend. 

All this rain we've had this week means that your plants have been absorbing plenty of water, and plenty of other nutrients that are more readily available than calcium.  This promotes fast growth and encourages maturing of your veggies, but without enough calcium to go with it your first crop may be a disappointment.  Keep an eye out for it and the due dates on the milk in your fridge.  And if you like tomatoes better than milk, forget the due date and dump it!