The cracking may be from watering. How often do you water the base?

I pick mine when they start blushing purple on the blossom end :-)

i think that is caused from irregular watering..like letting the conditions get too try between waterings.. eg too dry, too wet, too dry, too wet..

I water with a hose and nozzle around the base and just count to about 60seconds + in each position. I'm probably doing that 3x a week, except when we had a heat wave and I was doing it every other day. I also have the plants mulched well. Do you have a better way to suggest?

So GoodGround - do the shoulders on your tomatoes stay green?

So most people grow these tomatoes without any cracks?

I'd love to see a photo of what it's supposed to look like.

Should we be concerned about eating them when they are this cracked? Is there a chance of bacteria entering the tomato?

OH….and we are growing Sungold and Giant Belgium and they are not cracking.

Some varieties, the thin skin ones, are more prone to cracking and splitting but the cause is always the same - inconsistent soil moisture levels. Dry, wet, dry, wet, etc. causes the fruit swell and shrink with the change in conditions and the skin splits.

There is no way to know if a 60 sec count watering is enough or too much as the amount needed depends on too many variables - water pressure, soil type/consistency, how well it drains or not, containers or in ground, size of containers, weather, etc. etc. So all I can offer is to say that even my smallest containers get more than 60 seconds of watering.

But it is primarily the consistency of the soil moisture that is the problem, not the frequency or the method. That may mean watering for longer or more often per day or it may mean watering too much if what has happened due to frequent waterings is that you now have water- dependent shallow rooted plants. For example, a heat wave doesn't necessarily mean the plants need to be watered. Learn your soil moisture levels, stick your hands deep into the soil to determine if water is needed or not.

But yes there are many better ways of watering plants - self-watering containers, drip irrigation, soaker hose, even a watering can is often better than a hose in some situations as it delivers it slower over a longer period of time than a hose does.

Edible? Yes, just peel/cut out the cracked area and eat the rest.

Cherokee Purple tomato

Dave

PS: and agree that picking at color break - many discussions here about it - is the key

I also think that 60 sec( = 1 minute ) is not enough, depending of the flow rate from the hose. The next time put the nozzle in a 2 gallon watering can. I f it fill in 30 to 40 seconds then its ok.. A plant ( depending on the spacing needs about 3 gallons of water each time. In this case twice a week should be enough.

Sey

The cracking doesn't bother me to eat it. The burst from moisture change tears the skin. In how many positions are you watering for 1 min? I eat a lot of darks with green shoulders.

Hi Prairiemoon2,

I agree with the above comments. I'm growing multiple dark varieties IE: Bear Creek, Indian Stripe, Amazon Chocolate, Cherokee Whopper, JD's Special C-Tex. and I make sure if they have blushed and I'm about to water them I pick them before hand so they won't split or if I know there will be a rain storm I do the same. Any sudden rush of a lot of water will cause the thin skinned varieties to split if they are close to fully ripe especially if the soil doesn't drain well or is already very moist. Also. some varieties like Black Krim tend to have concentic rings but I don't think the variety you are mentioning does. Just my two cents....

David

Oh wow, what great looking tomatoes! :-)

Dave - I guess I need to improve my watering efforts, but I find it a mystery why only the Purple Cherokee has cracked so badly. The Sungold, in the past has cracked on me, after a few days of heavy rain. This year the rain has been more moderate and my watering seemed to be enough, because I’ve hardly seen a cracked Sungold. And the Giant Belgium, that I tried for the first time this year, has provided me huge tomatoes with no cracks.

But I never check the soil as you suggest. Probably because I can see around the base of the plants where there is no mulch, that it is dry. I realize that doesn’t mean it’s dry under the surface.

And I’m not really paying much attention to how long I’m watering, which is why I said 60+ minutes. I move the nozzle around to cover all the ground around the plants. None of my perennials have suffered from yellowing lower leaves this season either. So I think I have improved. In the spring, I measured how long it took to fill up a 5 gallon bucket with my nozzle and it took a count of 60 - 75 seconds. So I though that was enough and I was afraid to give the plants too much. But checking the soil routinely would let me know how far my watering is reaching below the surface.

All my plants are in the ground and will remain so. I wish I could install drip irrigation, but I don’t see a time I will be doing that soon. At some point I will.

I tried 4 tomato plants in the front of my house this year, where I have full sun. I compared that to the same varieties I grew in the back where there is a little more than 6hrs only. It made quite a difference. The Sungold tomato in front is huge and we’ve had a bumper crop but very little from the back. So, I think I am going to expand where I can grow tomatoes in front and grow something else in the back next year.

Can someone explain picking at the color break a little better? Also, I found so much foliage and fruit low on the plant, that it would be difficult to see the bottom of the tomato. I’ll try to train them better next year.

Seysonn -3 gallons twice a week for each plant sounds good. I can’t imagine that I haven’t been giving them that. Is it possible I was giving them too much? Would that produce the same cracking?

I’m going to time how long it takes to fill a 5 gallon bucket this week again, just to make sure I remember right. Yes, I just cover the entire ground overlapping as I go. Over the winter, I’m going to have to come up with a better watering system.

David - I’m getting the idea that watering well and picking at the right time will give me what I’m after. Thanks. I haven’t grown a large tomato in a long time, this is my first try with them. I normally only grow the cherries.

Thank you all!