Joanne said:
On Tue, 08 Jul 2003 14:58:07 GMT, (---Pete---) wrote:
Mix 1 tablespoon calcium cloride (road salt) with 1 pint water
and pout that around the base of the plant. Good for preventing
blossom end rot in tomatoes
Most communities still use sodium chloride as a road salt because
it is far less expensive to purchase. (The eventual costs of salt damage
are hard to grasp; the initial cheapness easy to notice.)
This would make a fairly good 'emergency' calcium treatment. Better
would be to add calcium carbonate (from ground limestone* or TUMS),
crushed eggshells or bone meal to the planting hole as a slow and
steady source.
*Since tomatoes also like a good bit of magnesium, dolomitic limestone
might be preferred.
I'm not so sure about that. Road salt has caused a sectionof my
flower garden to be very difficult to grow "anything" in (may have
found a solution this year, a great big 3 foot planter covering the
area).
Yours may have been 'cheap' sodium chloride road salt rather than
the safer, more expensive calcium chloride.
From what I've read, one treatment for soils high in sodium salt is to
dose with gypsum (calcium sulfate).
My own method of tomato fertilization:
Fluff up the beds while adding compost and alfalfa pellets. Let it mellow
for one - two weeks. (I use about 1 inch of cured and sifted compost per
bed; the alfafla pellets do not completely blanket the surface but cover
maybe 40% of it.)
Put a scant handful of Espoma's Tomato Tone in the bottom of each planting
hole and work it in a bit.
Mulch with something nutritious. Shredded leaves mixed with coffeegrounds
and/or cocoashells or sifted compost.
Later in the season, give the plants a few boosts with foliar feedings of Maxicrop
(seaweed).
My plants look particularly awesome this year. Late, but loading up with green
tomatoes.
--
Pat in Plymouth MI
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
(attributed to Don Marti)