WHAT ARE YOU GROWING? how are you watering,sun,container,earth etc.

Some varieties are meant to be that way. Personally, I like them a little messy inside.

Usually it is a sign of inconsistent soil moisture levels while the fruit is developing. Try to stabilize the moisture levels with mulch and avoid, as much as possible, either over or under watering.

In ground or in containers? If in-ground, how well/quickly does your soil drain - need to know that so that you can better judge how often and how much to water. EX: sandy soil will drain quickly so it will require more frequent watering to keep the moisture level consistent. Clay soil temds to retain water so care must be taken to avoid over-watering.

Dave

These plants are in the ground. I just guess how much to water and I never know whether the amount is right. I water every 2-3 days. It's hard to tell what is too much or too little. The soil amendments I used are Miracle Gro Organic Garden Soil.

Will mulching the plants around the base of the plant help now or is it too late? My plants each have anywhere from 3-7 fruit per plant that are green and not ripe...

Thanks.

Never too late to mulch. ;)

Been several good discussions lately on watering tips and techniques. Can't recall the titles off hand but a search of this forum (bottom of the page) using 'watering' should pull them up for you. A good feeding might help too as the MG soil only has a limited amount of nutrients.

Dave

I gave up on trying to understand how mealy tomatoes come to be many years ago.

I've grown one heck of a lot of varieties and there are only one or two that I dubbed mealy the first time I grew them.

What I can't understand is why a variety can be be perfectly fine one year and that same variety the next year is soft, mushy, mealy.

This happens to me primarily with the large beefsteak gold/red bicolors.

So I think it's environmental and I haven't a clue as to what exact environmental variables are involved. Sigh.

Carolyn

Thanks for the advice....

Carolyn gets the mealy monsters too?

Regarding Dave's comment about nutrients...what do you mean exactly by feeding? Fertilizing? Would you recommend fertilizing at the base of the plant now? I've read that it should be done mid-season, but then, I also hear that you shouldn't over fertilize.

Is it necessary then to apply fertilizer again?

if the tomatoes were cracked this is overwatering and leads to mealy tomatoes. Also, the first tomatoes to ripen are often mealy. Usually gets better later.

I think it might have something to do with soil nutrients from compost or light levels. All of our tomatoes were fine last year, except for some Roma or Baja tomatoes. They were the only tomatoes that were mushy inside (though they were firm until you bit them). They definitely had enough calcium, if not too much (they didn't crack at all). The soil probably didn't drain well, but we never had a problem before, when there weren't trees blocking the light and when we didn't use compost. However, we didn't grow Roma or Baja tomatoes then (mostly Yellow Pear, Red Pear, Early Girl and such).

It could have to do with acidity. The affected tomatoes were not very acidic, and calcium raises PH.

To my understanding, if a tomato has very little juice , then it/plant could not get enough water. As the opposite is also true : when tomato plant watered too much, the fruits will be, well, WATERY.
Another factor not to be overlook here is the variety. That is why some are called PASTE tomato. They have much less water contents : Mealy?

Seysonn

I have some suspicions as to factors that can contribute to mealiness:

* Too much calcium and maybe also potassium during cold, wet, dim weather.

* Not enough available phosphorus

* The wrong kind of compost

Most of the mealy tomatoes I've ever tried have come after the temperature drops, especially in more shaded areas with wet soil. Phosphorus is in higher demand when the temperature drops. Seeds don't seem to develop as well, or they go bad easier (seeds are high in phosphorus).

Mealy tomatoes are typically much firmer on the outside than regular tomatoes. This seems to implicate an abundance of available calcium, potassium and/or silica. Potassium helps to improve heat-tolerance. However, I'm not entirely sure what affect it has on plants in the cold. I would be very surprised if it had no effect.

Anyway, my neighbor also had mealy tomatoes without giving them extra potassium or anything. So, I'm tempted to attribute it entirely to the weather, which started out extremely hot and extremely dry (few, if any, tomatoes were mealy then) and then became quite cold and wet, and less bright (most of the tomatoes were mealy then). By extremely hot, I mean up to 116° F. By extremely dry, I mean it didn't really rain (maybe a little a couple times), and I was pretty much dry farming them from mid to late summer. By cold I mean, between about 33-60° F. By wet, I mean, a fair amount of rain every day or two, with constantly mud-colored soil.

Anyway, these are just some thoughts for experimentation that should be quite testable. I'm not claiming that anything in particular definitely causes mealiness.

They didn't get mealy until after it got cool and wet for a while, though, is what I was saying. For the most part, they were awesome and plenty juicy (the varieties that were supposed to be) in the heat and drought. I did plant them deep, though, to lessen the need for watering.

Could be too much nitrogen. Check with your local extension.

The possible causes are:

• high Nitrogen (N)
• low Potassium (K)
• low Calcium (Ca)
• too much water
• too hot
• certain varieties

The most likely causes are nitrogen being too high and potassium being too low. Nitrogen should be in the range of 4 to 5.5% in the leaf tissue. High nitrogen will also cause missed flower clusters (flower abortion), vegetative shoots at the ends of flower clusters, and a curling under or "balling up" of the tops of plants.

Funny that this thread was resurrected now. I planted a few plants in a friend's new garden (never been used for anything until now) and same varieties that are great for me are rather mealy and even mushy for him. So I tried to see what the differences are. His soil is pretty damn good, everything grew really well with minimal additions. But pH and calcium are on the high side. So currently my guesses are: some micronutrients getting locked due to pH, bad magnesium deficiency (clear symptoms on leaves, probably due to too much Ca), too much water (his soil is quite heavy, but taste was damn good, better than mine).

In any case, the message is that unless it's a variety known for mealiness, stuff can be improved somehow, but quite difficult to know how. Probably leaf/soil analysis would be the way to go if there's anywhere you can send them.

It could be similar factors that affect brix, since lack of flavor and mealiness often go hand in hand (although brix is about sugar, you tend to notice more flavor in fruits with a higher brix, too, from what I understand). According to some, whether or not it's true, brix has a lot to do with soil life. In my personal opinion, high nitrogen (at least nitrates, if not all nitrogen, anyhow) can definitely lead to diminished flavor, and probably reduced sugar, too. I think the variables that affect mealiness are different for different varieties, too. Upsetting the nitrogen-calcium-potassium-water-light-temperature balance (the balance right for whichever tomato variety you mean) in any of numerous ways probably has something to do with it. Since it doesn't seem to be the same for every variety, and those six variables can be switched around into loads of combinations (any number of which may or may not produce mealiness), if I'm right about that, I don't know that the world will figure it out for certain any time soon without some new kind of way to find out.

I wish I could delete some of my old comments.

My experience has always been that cooler weather and not enough sun gives rise to mealy tomatoes. I've not had it happen during periods of consistent heat, sun and dry weather. But foggy, cooler summers bring on the mealy texture out here.

@doof I have a variety you might like. Well, it's a cross; so, it shouldn't breed true, but it looks a lot like Zapotec, except with somewhat smaller fruits, and I wouldn't call it a stuffer, because it's filled with mushy/mealy/messy flesh (it seems that it's supposed to be that way) instead of having lots of hollow pockets. The fruits taste fermented if left on our counter for a couple days or so. It's a lot earlier than Zapotec. The flavor is interesting. I can't say it's a slicer, but it should be great for sauce. It does have juice and gel, too, but lots of thick flesh by comparison.

I think the mother was an Ambrosia Red cross (a prolific, vigorous, golfball-sized yellow) and I think the father was either Zapotec or Pink Stuffer (although a Pink Accordian cross or a Pink Trifele Russian cross is possible).

On the other hand, I could have mislabeled Zapotec seeds, and Zapotec could be the mother. I dried Zapotec seeds inside a brown paper bag, and these seeds were outside on the same bag. Either way, it's different from Zapotec.

I planted a "patio tomato" in the ground where it got watered every day by the sprinklers....the first few tomatoes I picked were mealy as hell...real mush. I transplanted it to a pot and watered less and the tomatoes now taste delicious. Turns out I was overwatering them...so glad I moved them:)

I had to respond to the below post from Mokinu even though it's five years old. I have a story that may just nail this down. I have a raised bed garden on the west side of my house. I planted some sugar lump tomatoes directly in the raised bed in August, and by Thanksgiving, I had ripe tomatoes average size was a large cherry tomato, and the plants were about 4ft and taking over. So, I cut a couple of branches (because it grew so fast), and transplanted them directly into the ground on the east side of my building sometime in November. The plant grew much faster, and the tomatoes were, on average 50% larger than the tomatoes on the donor tree, and the tree is far more productive. Also, the tomatoes had slight ridges (like they had a quick hookup with the neighboring Cherokee purple) and had a dimple on the bottom, as opposed to the perfectly round tomatoes on the donor tree. Finally around the first of February, I plucked one of these huge (compared to the donor tree), red tomatoes, and cut it open.....it was mealy! What a disappointment since the tree is loaded up with tomatoes. When I read the below post, everything from the cooler temperatures, to the inconsistent watering because of a lot of rain (I live in So Cal 10b), to the high nutrient, unbalanced nutrient(rain, and just generally much harder to control the nutrient in the ground than a raised bed), just about everything in this post describes conditions which explain how a donor tree planted at a different time, in a different location could be so different, could produce such different tomatoes, and mealy tomatoes.

• 5 years ago last modified: 5 years ago I have some suspicions as to factors that can contribute to mealiness:* Too much calcium and maybe also potassium during cold, wet, dim weather.* Not enough available phosphorus* The wrong kind of compost Most of the mealy tomatoes I've ever tried have come after the temperature drops, especially in more shaded areas with wet soil. Phosphorus is in higher demand when the temperature drops. Seeds don't seem to develop as well, or they go bad easier (seeds are high in phosphorus).Mealy tomatoes are typically much firmer on the outside than regular tomatoes. This seems to implicate an abundance of available calcium, potassium and/or silica. Potassium helps to improve heat-tolerance. However, I'm not entirely sure what affect it has on plants in the cold. I would be very surprised if it had no effect. Anyway, my neighbor also had mealy tomatoes without giving them extra potassium or anything. So, I'm tempted to attribute it entirely to the weather, which started out extremely hot and extremely dry (few, if any, tomatoes were mealy then) and then became quite cold and wet, and less bright (most of the tomatoes were mealy then). By extremely hot, I mean up to 116° F. By extremely dry, I mean it didn't really rain (maybe a little a couple times), and I was pretty much dry farming them from mid to late summer. By cold I mean, between about 33-60° F. By wet, I mean, a fair amount of rain every day or two, with constantly mud-colored soil. Anyway, these are just some thoughts for experimentation that should be quite testable. I'm not claiming that anything in particular definitely causes mealiness. The red tomato on the string is from the donor tree, and of course the green one got about 30-40% larger before I picked it, and it was mealy. FYI, there will be Creamy Tomato Bisque later this month.