Some things to check: First the pot, does it have drainage holes at the low points? If not-- drill holes. Is it the right size for the plant? If you have a dwarf windowbox then 2 gallons might be OK. Second the Mix, does it drain without holding water too long? If not, then repot with appropriate draining mix. Did you have a COMPLETE fertilizer in your initial potting mix including calcium? make sure you do. Next; were you watering when the plant needed it, or on a predetermined schedule? Check moisture at root level with your finger, and look at the plant for wilt. Dont water unless the plant needs it. Are you giving the plant a periodic fertilizer after the initial fertilizer is depleted? The watering of containers with fast draining mix will deplete fertilizer faster than in the ground plants. Consider these questions and how many of these things need to be addressed. This is a a little late in the season for some locations, so some special things may have to be considered due to remaining growing time. Of course one needs to assure the plant has good sunlite and right temperature.

If you obtain some (Calcium Nitrate) from somewhere and give a good watering with that, it sops it dead in it's tracks within two days of treatment, pull off all infected tomatoes and any remaining that has not been effected will go on to grow to full size and all new trusses formed will not have the complaint, the addition of a little seaweed mixture will asl help the plant to recover. Failing this-do incorperate a good helping of Dolomite lime into your potting mix and container mix next season to avoid the problem, Contrary to popular beleif - Calcium Nitrate is the best and quickest acting of the available treatments and will cure it every time, and is used in the UK all the time to cure various forms of the BER complaint, like Ber in tomatoes, Bitter Pit in apple trees,and lots of other forms of it-tried and fully tested.

Interesting but unfortunately not new. Did you keep at least one control plant? One that was only supplied the water without the liquid lime or the supplemental fertilizer? If not, then the only conclusion that can be drawn is one of coincidence/timing/plant maturity. Given all the scientific inconclusive testing that has been done by the commercial industry on lime supplements it is difficult to claim that supplemental lime cures the problem. First because most container potting mixes already contain lime and second because testing shows that even tomatoes with BER still have adequate Ca++ in them. It is just not properly distributed due to inconsistent soil moisture levels. While it never hurts to add a small amount of additional lime to potting mixes, it is very easy to over-do it and create a whole set of new problems by skewing the soil pH. That brings us back to the root cause of BER - inconsistent soil moisture levels and immature plants. Your BER was most likely eliminated by the water additions and the maturing of the plants rather than the lime but with out control plants for comparison there is no way to support any claims made. Still it makes us as gardeners feel better to try. :) Dave

Blossom end rot has many causes. But the good news is that it ususally goes away as the plants mature and can better handle the many stresses that can induce it. It used to be thought that BER was due to a lack of calcium but research has shown that plants with BER fruits have plenty of calcium. Here's a post I wrote about BER and perhaps it will help explain some of the issues: Blossom End Rot (BER) is one of the most common tomato problems seen in the early part of the season. It is a physiological condition, not a disease caused by a fungus or a bacterium or a virus. Therefore it cannot be treated. And as I'll explain below, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to prevent. BER has nothing to do with the blossoms, it refers to the fact that at the end of the tomato opposite the place where the tomato is attached to the stem, called the stem end, is the bottom of the tomato, which is called the blossom end. You often can see remnants of the blossom attached to that end as the tomato forms. At the blossom end one sees a flattened area that looks leathery and initially brown and then black, as the fruit rots. BER is said to occur when there is uneven watering, drought, heavy rainfall, excessive nitrogen fertilization, rapid plant growth or root pruning during cultivation, high winds and rapid temperature changes. So lots of conditions have been associated with BER. But the rapid plant growth and nitrogen fertilization are both common to conditions seen early in the season, and indeed, that is when most BER occurs. Then it usually just goes away. BER occurs because under the conditions just stated, Ca++ moves from the fruit into the vasculature (stems) of the plant. Or, some feel that Ca++ never reaches the fruits because under stress demand for Ca++ exceeds supply.This lowered amount of Ca++ is what causes BER. Excessive rates of transpiration (kind of like sweating in humans) also is involved in Ca++ displacement. Thus, the plant as a whole is NOT Ca++ deficient, the Ca++ has just been displaced. Many books and magazine articles tell you that by adding Ca++ in the form of lime or eggshells, for instance, that you can prevent BER. That does NOT appear to be true. It was several years ago that I found out that University field trial experiments have so far failed to show that BER can be prevented by addition of Ca++. I recently e-mailed my friend at Cornell who told me all this two years ago, to again confirm that it was still true, and will update you, if necessary. Peppers and many cole crops are also susceptible to BER and there's quite a bit of literature on BER and Ca++ for those crops also. The results are the same; addition of Ca++ does not prevent BER. Some data strongly suggests that foliar spraying with Ca++ is of no use because not enough gets to the fruits to do any good. And it's known that the sprays for fruits that are sold are usless. No molecules can get across the fruit epidermis except when the fruits are still small and green. If they did, just what do you think would happen to the fruits when it rained.LOL Not all varieties of tomatoes get BER. Some never do, others are horrible. That's not surprising since certainly there are slight physiological differences between varieties. After all, almost all garden tomatoes, with the exception of the currant tomatoes are in the same genus and species, Solanum lycopersicum. And we humans are all in the same species, Homo sapiens, var. sapiens...and look how different some of our physiologies are. Whoa! So, BER is a physiological condition, cannot be cured, and current literature data suggests it cannot be prevented. It occurs on some, but not all varieties of tomatoes, is usually seen early in the season and then stops, for most folks. It would be nice to say that you could even out your watering, prevent droughts and heavy rainfalls, ensure even and not rapid growth of plants and not disturb the roots by shallow cultivating. But on a practical basis, I think we all know that's almost impossible. So, BER has never bothered me, I just ignore it, and it goes away with time. Adding Ca++ to soils that are Ca++ deficient makes sense, but few soils are. And if soils are acidic, Ca++ is not taken up well but addition of Epsom Salts to the soil can aid in Ca++ uptake in such acidic soils. Many folks add Ca++ and then see that BER disappears. What they fail to realize is that BER is going to go away anyway, as the season progresses. And that's because as the plants get larger they are better able to handle the many stresses that can induce it. So one cannot correlate addition of Ca++ to disappearance of BER. Universities have done so many stidies on this already because BER is a billion dollar problem in the commercial veggie industry. Of all the stresses that can induce BER the two that are most under control of the home gardener are fertilization and water delivery. That is, too much fertilizer causes plants to grow too rapidly and is perhaps one of the major causes of BER developing. Too rich soils do the same thing. Plant growth simply outstrips the ability of Ca++ to get to the fruits. Mulching to help ensure even delivery of water also can be done and is also one of the two major causes, IMHO, of BER. BER appears usually on half ripe fruits but also can appear on grass green ones.Lack of Ca++ only occurs at the blossom end of the fruit and it causes tissue destruction which leads to that papery greyish/blackish lesion appearing.Now sometimes that lesion opens up and fungi and bacteria enter and that causes the rotting and also the appearance of fungal growth on and in the lesion. Just pick off any BER fruits that appear and soon the next fruits to ripen will BERless. Many books, magazine articles and websites still say to add Ca++ as lime, eggshells, etc, and seem not to be aware of all the research that has been done in the last 20 years. But many books, magazine articles, are now sharing this newer information about addition of Ca++ not being able to either prevent or cure BER except in rare situations of low Ca++ soils or acidic soils. I suppose it will take another generation for the right information to be present everywhere. And from my own experience i can tell you that there will be folks who will get madder than can be when they read this kind of info becasue they simply believe otherwise. So be it. LOL Addition of modest amounts of Ca++ aren' t harmful, but I feel strongly that folks should know what's going on with past and current rsearch re BER and Ca++. Hope the above helps. Carolyn