The End of Blossom End Rot

Well in the last three days Naomi and I have harvested about a half dozen of her aunt's family heirloom tomatoes. Their flirtation with blossom end rot has ended hopefully due to our application of bone meal and some calcium water solution. There are several more tomatoes with that promising orangish hue. It appears that my worries of no tomatoes were just a bit over blown. I will take some of the bigger ones and harvest it for its seeds so that we can plant more next year. This variety appears to be a bit like a roma but much larger.

Unfortunately not all tomato stories are end so well. Our local CSA's tomato plants developed late blight. For any who do not know this is the same disease that caused the Irish Potato Famine, which ended with approximately 1.5 million people dieing of starvation. Many other farms have had this disease attack their crops as well. In the New England states many farms have had to destroy entire fields of tomatoes. Luckily our CSA has only had to get rid of 600 of their 4000 tomato plants. This cool wet summer has not been beneficial to the tomato crops and I can only hope for hot weather for the rest of August.

Washington Post Article on Late Blight and Tomatoes

Back From England and Quite a Bit of Work to Do

Well Naomi and I got home yesterday around 4:00 and found out that it was a bit warm here in Chicago. We had constant 20 degrees Celsius (72 degrees Farenhiet) weather in England and arrived in Chicago where it is now finally Summer 90 degrees. The garden has been producing and many plants are ready to harvest. Today I will harvest some of my potatoes and the onions. The melons have started to claim the bed the onions are in. They have also claimed the adjoining area around the raised beds outside of the garden plot. I will have to check to see if any melons are starting to form.

In bad news the heirloom tomatoes that we recieved from Naomi's aunt have blossom end rot. I came home and found 7 tomatoes afflicted by this serious disorder. I found this fact sheet at the OSU Extension website, http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/3000/pdf/3117.pdf , and will try to adjust the soil. The wierd thing is that both of these are my container garden tomatoes. The ones in the raised beds are doing well so far (crossing my fingers). If you have any suggestions or advice with this please let me know. Would greatly appreciate all the help.

These are a family heirloom that have been passed down. I do not want to lose all of the tomatoes and therefore all of the seeds.