[Goosegirl]

My toms were late in germinating and we also bought one that is supposedly an Amatuer which looks more like a beefstake one but, though we've got lots of green toms, they aren't ripening. All are in the greenhouse and have been watered and fed but some are also now showing blossom end rot. Anyone else had the same problems and what do you recommend?

[jaydig]

My toms have finally started ripening this week, both in the greenhouse and outdoors.  This, despite all of the heat we've had is much later than last year.  The other problem I have is that the squash plants on the allotment seem to be only producing male flowers and the one plant I kept at home is only producing female ones.  Add to this that my only surviving courgette plant is very, very slow to produce any fruit and is only doing this one lonely little courgette at a time and it seems to be a very weird season this year.

[Hampshire Hog]

I’m no expert but I have read that the key point with tomatoes is sunshine/ light rather than heat. Do you have any scope to boost the light for them somehow??
I know various techniques involve lights and or tinfoil reflectors when growing seeds.
Unfortunately blossom end rot is supposed to be due to uneven watering not sure how you can reverse that.

[Growster...]

I learned that BER was also down to calcium deficiency so Epsom Salts helped!

We've had a similar issue with ripening toms, but some forged ahead but there are some just smouldering...

I put it down to the exhaustive heat earlier while they normally like to take their time and adjust, but cannot prove that! The runner beans just belted away and were inedible within a few days, so something went wrong!

If you believe the BBC, it'll be down to globule worming, but as you're a true gardener, you'll understand that sometimes nothing goes to plan!

[AnneB]

Tomatoes don't really like temperatures above about 35°c.
Now that temperatures gave reduced to around normal mine have started to ripen all at once. I think they were in some sort of suspended animation in all that heat.
Hopefully your tomatoes will now ripen too.

[Blewit]

Same here, slow to ripen now all coming at once. A lot of them have greenback too which (although can sometimes be warded off with a potassium feed) is a result of too high temperature and too much light.

[Hampshire Hog]

Fascinating comment about “greenback” on your tomatoes.
A quick google and I now realise that some of mine have this issue too.
I’d been simply resolving this by merely cutting off the affected area but I didn’t realise it was recorded problem with tomatoes. Probably my outdoor tomatoes have never been hot enough to be adversely affected. Many thanks!

[Goosegirl]

Thanks all for your very interesting comments and so glad it's not all down to me. The gh is partly shaded from the early morning sun until about 11am by two big apple trees that were just a stump when we moved in over two years ago, so the next year I pruned off any big shoots in the middle and cut by half any outward growing ones and  we had some blossom but no fruit. This spring OH removed some middle shoots but left the rest to grow and we've now got quite a few apples to harvest. We've cut the lower leaves off the toms and I've fed them about every two weeks with Tomorite. As OH insisted I keep the gh door shut to ensure the temps helped the toms to ripen and, even with it shut, the temps seemed to be cooler than outside. I have two grow bags each with two identical toms. The ones on the south gh end kept wilting even though I'd given them the same amount of water as the other two in the grow bag facing west. Funny thing is, they're the only ones not getting BER!

[JayG]

The larger the tomato variety, the longer they take to grow to full size, and therefore the higher the chance that at some point they might experience adverse growing conditions (including irregular watering.)
Especially true of beefsteak varieties (when I've grown them, about a quarter had BER, and that's in less challenging conditions than this year.)

Mine have been OK so far this season - the Red Alert, aptly named,  have just about finished, but bush varieties do tend to produce almost all their crop at the same time. Rosella and Gardener's Delight are ripening well in order of setting, as you would expect.

(The GH cukes seem to have suffered more than the tomatoes from the heat - they still look reasonably healthy but the (all female) flowers are continuing to mostly abort at the moment.)

[Growster...]

Might be a good idea to keep an eye out for blight from now on, as humidity is erratic and somethimes higher than normal!

[Gardener and Rabbit]

Similar here for a later sown Crimson Crush that I was experimenting with in a pot outdoors.  It hasn't succumbed to blight but the hot weather has slowed it down and the fruit look like they have greenback?  (I was looking at other pictures of Crimson Crush and can't quite decide whether the fruit are normally a bit green on the shoulders as they develop or it is greenback.)  What does everyone think...

[Hampshire Hog]

My crimson crush look like this too.
They definitely had greenback on some tomatoes which had ripened.
I will have to see as well if the green ones follow the same pattern.
I must confess I haven’t lost too much sleep merely cut off the offending portions.

[hasbeans]

There's a bit of greenback on the Black Cherry toms I'm growing, all the other varieties seem ok.  Perhaps black toms absorb more (excess) light?  Consumed regardless!

[Subversive_plot]

Whether it's to address BER or other calcium deficiencies, please note that Epsom salts do not contain calcium. They are magnesium sulfate.

If you want to provide soluble calcium, you can apply gypsum (a hydrated calcium sulfate) or plaster of Paris (gypsum that has been heat-treated to remove water), or calcium nitrate.

Liming the soil also works, but is more of a slow-acting alternative that also raises soil pH.

[joinnowuk]

I’m no expert but I have read that the key point with tomatoes is sunshine/ light rather than heat. Do you have any scope to boost the light for them somehow??
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