I & H wrote:

I have loads of beautiful green plum tomatoes just waiting to become sauce.
The first two were reddening up so I picked them yesterday, from low on the
plant, and the bottoms were completely rotted out. The same thing happened
to most of my big boys last year. As soon as they start to ripen and pink
up, they develop a area of rot/mold at the bottom. The longer I waited to
pick, the more they dissolved so that they were just half-tomatoes,
beautiful, red, half rotten tomatoes...darn. The plants are pretty crowded
in my garden, they grew full and wide rather than tall (I haven't
planted plum tomatoes before), but the plants and green tomatoes seem
healthy until they start to pink up. Is it a water problem? We've had a cool
wet season here in New England.
Please help me save my sauce.....

Also, anyone have a good recipe for pesto? My basil patch took off this year
and I have boatloads of it ready. Looks like everyone will get pesto for
Christmas this year...

-Holly

Hey Holly, everyone agrees it's blossom end rot. I've had it on some plants
some years. Then I read, and I think it was in this group, that if you push a
calcium vitamin pill into the ground when you plant out, you can prevent the
problem. I've been doing it for the past two growing seasons, one 300 mg pill
per plant, and so far, it seems to be working.

EV