Do the bags of peat moss and manure say they include calcium? They normally don't.

And watering... You should water deeply once a week, not shallowly every day. Deep watering ensures a deep root system. Mulch the bed to keep the moisture level consistent and to avoid blossom end rot.

I don't think you should fertilize except for perhaps a balanced foliar spray once a week. Some people don't fertilize their tomatoes after the beds are prepared and fertilized and the plants are set in the soil. If you added manure, which is high in nitrogen, that'll be the source of your base fertilizer.

The best way to get calcium is calcium nitrate.

Limestone has calcium in it as well. It will also raise your pH so if don't use it if your pH is already perfect.

Just a guess but it sounds as if you might be describing BER (blossom end rot) - a common problem with tomatoes early in the season. If so, it can be caused by several things besides soil calcium deficiency - early spring weather fluctuations being one of them - and it often disappears on its own once the weather settles. There are lots and lots of threads here on blossom end rot and a FAQ as well that you might want to check out.

Otherwise, I agree with the posts above. Please do not water daily or shallowly. Water deeply 1x (or 2x if it is especially hot and dry) a week and mulch the plants well. You'll get no calcium from peat or manure unless the mix you used had added calcium nitrate, and you likely already have more than enough fertilizer. Good luck. ;)

If you are indeed experiencing Blossom End Rot(BER) than your watering routine should get the most attention. You might be better off overwatering than underwatering in your efforts to control thre problem. Chances are that you have adequate soil calcium levels. Calcium Nitrate would confound the problem (excess Nitrogen tends to worsen condition).

Lately there is a research report on flaming young plants to control weeds. One of the side effects noted was decrease in BER in the flamed tomato plots. I've never done this practice with tomatoes but it demonstrates the delicate metabolic imbalance that occurs in the tomato plant causing BER.

Even under somewhat ideal conditions you might expect BER problems with certain varieties. Red Zebra was a nightmare last year for me and I suspect that the related hybrid- Red Lightning will be equally as bad. Those varieties might be good canditates for flaming.

bmoser

How the hell do you "flame" young plants? Do you flame the plants or the earth? And with what?

Anney, i didn't want to cause a turmoil with this subject. Flaming tomatoes was news to me to but this was a university trial so I expect you'll hear more about it.

Flaming is kind of tricky. Most use propane source and have flaming units mounted on tractors so time/temperature exposures can be fine tuned to control weeds without killing your plants. The researchers claim that tomato plants are quite tolerable of flaming temperatures (140-160F)needed to kill surrounding weeds.

Like I mentioned earlier, I never tried it with tomatoes. I have used it on carrot beds with success by planting carrots and beets the same day and flaming the carrot rows when beet seedlings emerge. The goal is to just nip young weed seedlings enough that they will die off.

Annie,

When I was young ... oh about 14 (45 years ago), I worked summers at the Stoneville MS Experimental Station. They breed cotton there and test herbicides, etc. Sometimes we worked in the herbicide test plots determining how well each application worked.

The two applications that worked the best were "Herbicidal Oil" (carbontetrachloride) and torching with propane or butane. Carbon tet is outlawed now, and I don't know if it would work on tomatoes. You had to apply it as a preemergent or at the latest when the cotton sprouts had just emerged and not yet developed "bark."

The torching, or "flaming," was done as Moser explained with tractor mounted flame throwers that aimed the blue flames very low and directly at ground level so they severely scorched all emerged weeds and cooked shallow preemerged weed seeds.

We LOVED herbicidal oil and torch treated test plots ... because the way the scientists determined the rate of weed kill was for us younguns, four per acre plot, to systematically hoe the rows of cotton hour after hour, day after day, in the hot Delta sun. They timed us with stop watches, marked down the results on clipboards, and continuously cross referenced everything on all kinds of different soil types, etc. Grueling, hot, dusty, boring work ... and we got 56c an hour!

Well, thanks for the information on flaming for BER prevention. I wasn't upset, despite the tone of my outburst, but rather astonished! I guess I'll do some internet hunting to see how the application of heat to kill weed-seedlings around tomato plants could affect the later development of BER. Maybe a heat-jolt to tomatoes when they're young affects the plant's future tissue-structure, since most BER occurs when the plant can't move the calcium that's available to it to the fruit where it's needed.

Annie,

I think the reasoning regarding torching weeds to prevent BER is related to removing the weeds without having to till the soil around the plants. I don't think it has anything to do with the heat of the burning fuel.

Excessive tilling, hoeing, etc. around tomato plants to the extent that you damage the fine feeding roots can cause blossom end rot (BER) because it interupts the plant's uptake of calcium during green fruit development. Sometimes the need to remove advancing weeds coincides with the tomato plant's timing with regard to green fruit wall development (say late June/early July for me). And yes, I've had severe BER happen in otherwise normal weather/normal soil moisture conditions but following my soil tilling too close to the tomato plants.

If it is indeed calcium deficient, I have used a 1/2 crushed Tums per plant at planting time. Its calcium carbonate. Seemed to cure my BER.

tj