Earth box for tomatoes

deltadawn

Need some advice: after reading some posts earlier this Summer/Spring we decided to try tomatoes. Has anyone ever had problems with blossom end rot using the Earthbox. We have some tomatoes with it and others are fine. Isn't blossom end rot caused by too much water or not enough water? I did plant 3 plants vs the 2 that were suggested by the manuafacturer. I think next year I will try planting just 2. Any advice, suggestions????? Thanks, Dawn

Cpt'n Cook

Blossom end rot is caused by a lack of lime. I made a couple of new boxes myself this year and planted three tomato plants in one of them. Of course after I had them all set up I read the Earth Box directions (Mac user) and it said to add lime to the potting mix for tomatoes.
Duh, I started occasionally pouring in some water with limestone mixed in, it seems to have worked fairly well as I am now overrun with perfect tomatoes. Rare in New England this year

These were all grown in Earth boxes or my homemade boxes.


So add Limestone any way you can!

fishlessman

that could explain the flowers rotting off my plants this year, they are planted under big pines. gonna get some lime up there. the plants themselves are huge but not many flowers took

Cpt'n Cook

Might be! This has been an awful year for tomatoes. Apparently there was a large shipment of young plants sent to the big box stores from down south that were infected with Early blight disease which has spread all over New England. I have some neighbors whose pants have all died. My plants are starting to look a little yellowy.

I have a sweet 100 cherry tomato that would normally have hundreds of tomatoes by now and has ripened maybe a dozen good ones, it's been a BAD tomato year.

fishlessman

the sweet 100 is my only good plant, and its huge, over nine feet tall. duck taped it to some boards last weekend. that one has a good amount that are just turning red in the last week. just a couple jetstars and a couple mr stripeys that might have a chance to turn. every flower rotted until about the second week of july. planted to far into the asparagus bed, next year ill step them out a little further. those acidic pines arent helping, i should have thought about the lime sooner, i dont think you can put too much down in that area under the pines. blueberries love the pines, huge crop this year

Cpt'n Cook

We got the best crop of Blueberries we ave ever had, I think it was all that rain we had. My sweet 100s are tall but not producing well.

Misippi Egger

The instructions for the Earthbox call for about a cup of Dolomite (lime) to increase the pH for tomatoes, as the potting mix is too acidic. Blossom end rot is caused in most cases from pH that is too low.

Cpt'n Cook seems to have overcome this with adding some limestone to his water. Split tomatoes come from letting the reservoir go dry, then watering, as well as from hot weather.

My earthbox tomatoes are recovering from our extremely hot June (95-100*) which interferes with the bloom setting, I am starting to get some tomatoes again, but am starting to see some yellow limbs. Not sure what that is from as I don't see any pests on them.

Good luck with them.

deltadawn

Thank you everyone for your advice. I guess I missed the part about the lime in the directions. Not all of the tomatoes have it, just some. We have one plant that is a "Mr Stripey" and they are very sweet and very good. They have stripes of yellow through red. We do have more tomatoes this year using the Earthbox vs just planting in the dirt or pots.

crghc98

Looking good...

I only have a few tomatoes....one eggplant, and my zuchini and squash have done nothing...(rabbits got my pepper plants)...

Basil and Thyme are going great though