Hi everyone! So this is my second year having a pretty serious garden and I’m experiencing some BER on my tomatoes. I was hoping someone could give me some advice and insight on any mistakes I might be making or suggestions on how to remedy.

Factors:

-uncharacteristic heat (mid to high 90s) and lack of rain for ~past 2 weeks

-watering 2x a day, first 8-10am, second 4-6pm (usually water 1x a day in normal temp and precip)

-clay rich soil despite various additives last year, added manure and lime this year and tilled in

-no mulch, soil has become somewhat compacted and runs off/pools a bit in places

I am growing several varieties of tomatoes but am only noticing BER on my beefsteaks and romas. I first noticed it when one of my beefsteaks began to turn red, but noticed it had a soft spot on the bottom so we picked it off. Next I noticed that the new, small tomatoes on my romas pretty much all had black spots on the bottoms and removed those, but all of the older, larger tomatoes on the same plants were fine with no BER. Next, I noticed that a few of the new, small beefsteak tomatoes has dark spots on the bottoms, AND a few of the older, larger beefsteaks had soft spots – but most of the fruit has no sign of BER. This has all occurred in about the past week. All are pictured below.

I decided to buy some powdered milk as I figured it was probably not an underwatering issue, as I’ve been watering 2x a day, so it must be lack of calcium. So far I’ve mixed the packet which says it makes 1 quart of milk, in to a 2 gallon watering can. I only put it on the romas as I was most worried about those and they had the most impacted fruits. A few days later, I simply sprinkled the dry powdered milk around the base of ALL my tomato plants on top of the soil and then watered it in. (The third and final packet in the box was used on my pepper plants which I believe also needed a shot of calcium.)

As I am now out of powdered milk, I’m wondering if I should buy more and continue watering the tomatoes with the diluted milk mixture every few days? Not sure if this is something you can overdo. My gut is telling me to keep giving them the milk mixture though because I don’t want to lose any more tomatoes! I also am a little worried that my watering schedule is allowing too much time to dry out in between waterings, as I’ve recently read this can also cause BER…

Any input in appreciated as I am getting a little discouraged :(