I'm having a fight with one of my tomato plants.

[Stuccolow]

Mr. Italian Tomato tree has been bad. It just didn't grow like I expected. It's not going to grow 15 feet tall and produce bushels of tomatoes. Now the first fruit that it produces is half rotted. Darn you Tomato Rot!

Since Mr. Italian Tomato tree is in a pot, separate from the other tomatoes, I'm almost thinking to pull and dump him. He doesn't have a lot of flowers and well, if you look at the photo album I posted, you can see that I have a few tomato plants. Just a couple. Not many at all.

What should I do if I really feel like saving it? How likely would tomato rot spread? Do you name and talk to your plants?

[Brian Cooper]

This sounds like (BER) Blossom End Rot which is a calcium difficency. If that's the case you need to add calcium to the soil. A simple way is TUMS or crumbled egg shells. It is hard to keep all the nutrients in the soil with containers because you have to water them so much it gets washed away. If you have a spot you can put it in the ground it may be better off. Tomato plants are pretty resilient so you may be alright if you just dig a big hole and put the dirt and all from the pot in the ground. Good luck, and let us know how the fight goes.

[Stuccolow]

Monday evening, after I posted this, I fertilized and watered really well. Then I added some egg shell, and watered more on Tuesday. Still no rain, so more watering today. We'll give it another week, but I am not going to stop threatening it.

[Stuccolow]

It's over. I've won. The Italian Tomato Tree is dead. All Hail the Italian Tomato Tree.

First off, the mice are rampant. They even climbed up and nibbled on the barely red fruit. Or it was birds. Either way, nothing was going to last for me to eat it. I also pulled a yellow pear tomato that popped out of the ground unexpected. And some red, slighter bigger than cherry, tomatoes. It was at the point that I couldn't reach the fruit to treat it for problems. All of the plants I pulled had just turned tomatoes with nibble marks.

Then I saw the little devil. It ran between the vines of the red tomato plant. What a ballsy little critter, or what lazy freaking dogs I have. And cat who likes to escape and spend the night outside.

Anyways. It's fine. It's all good. I'm going to mix up the soil. Add a bunch of compost juice, and some fast growing greens. There's plenty of tomatoes left to eat. Once I kick the mice out.