I have 27 heirloom tomato plants this year and some are suffering from the same thing. It's a common problem with heirlooms in general. I have read that it is not necessarily due to a lack of calcium as much as the plant is not able to process the calcium available, because of temperature extremes. Since it's been a pretty wild summer here in the Northwest with cool then hot temps and then hot with cool temps it confuses the tomatoes. I have also read that well limed soil in the fall will correct the problem for the next year.
There is nothing wrong with the tomatoes that have the virus other than their looks. You can pull them off while they are green and set them inside ugly side up and wait until they ripen then just cut the ugly part off. They taste just fine, but you couldn't give them away or sell them in that condition. Regardless you should remove the infected ones whether you eat them or not, so they do not infect the newer ones. I cut my plants way back and cut most all of the leaves and stems that did not have buds on them and anything touching the ground then gave them an additional dose of tomato fertilizer to help correct the problem. I figured that I was going to lose them anyhow, so if I expermient failed then oh well. It took a few weeks, but they are thriving and are doing better than they were with all of their extra foliage, so you may want to consider a really good haircut and extra water. Now having said that, tomatoes do not like to sit in water, so having wet soil is ok but do not leave them soaking. Let me know if you find this helpful.

All of my tomato plants are heirlooms, and the ones in the garden are just fine, but I'm losing almost all of the tomatoes from the two plants in the Earthbox. The plants themselves seem healthy, but I let the resevoir dry out once or twice, enough that one of the plants started to wilt slightly, and ever since then almost all of the tomatoes have developed brown spots on the blossom end, even though I'm being careful to water every day now.

The peppers in the other Earthbox are doing fine though, so maybe next year I'll use both Earthboxes for peppers, and only grow tomatoes in the garden.

Bonnie

Thank you gingersmom! You did a great job in explaining it. Yeah, I bet it is the moisture and not calcium.
Where does one get lime? And can it be added to the soil in pots? I might try giving them a little snip. Do you think it would be a good idea to set them in a bit of shade so they don't dry out so fast? How about mulching?Or would that just promote other diseases? What kind of fertilizer do you like to use? Do you think this is something I can get rid of fast enough so I can still have a decent crop this year?

-Bonnie, I think next year I will grow Heirlooms in the ground. I only have room in my veggie garden for three, but if that is the only way...
I haven't grown Herlooms before, but from what I have seen they do not seem to be as tolerant of harsh conditions as Hybrids.
CMK

Work on keeping the moisture as stable as possible.

Try shading the POT, not the plant, to keep the roots cooler and the soil moister.

Sorry but I just can't let the statement that heirlooms are more prone to BER than are hybrids pass without comment. It simply isn't true and yes I grow hundreds of plants of both types as do many of us here.

If you browse through just a few of the many past discussions here on BER (blossom end rot) you find that low levels of soil calcium is not the cause, that things such as milk and Tums, and egg shells (which are all old wives tales), and yes even lime provide little if any benefit because they are so very slow to break down into any useable form.

Inconsistent soil moisture levels - often due to weather rather than the gardener - and the plants inability to cope with that inconsistency is the primary contributing factor. Further, that BER, when it happens, affects hybrid varieties just as much as it does any heirloom (more commonly referred to as "open-pollinated") varieties. As the weather/watering stabilizes - and mulch can be of great benefit in accomplishing that - and the plant adapts and matures the BER disappears all on its own. There is no magic cure.

Further, many of the so-called heirlooms have just as much disease tolerance as do some hybrids and in some cases more tolerance. It all depends on the variety and the severity of the disease.

Please don't make the mistake of laying any problems you may be having at the feet of "heirlooms". The problems are just tomato problems. :^)

Dave

There is nothing wrong with the tomatoes that have the virus other than their looks

BER is not caused by a virus.

Also, it's not simply the appearance that's affected -- the part of the fruit affected by BER is inedible.

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you should remove the infected ones whether you eat them or not, so they do not infect the newer ones

That use of "infected" is correct but misleading. Fruit which have BER are infected in the sense of having that condition, and being damaged by it. However, BER is not an infection. Fruit affected by BER are not infectious; they do not contain an infectious agent (like a bacterium or a virus). They cannot transmit the condition to other fruit.

There may be secondary fungal infections, but AFAIK they do not happen often. The main advantage in removing BER-damaged fruit is not to prevent fungus attacking other fruit, but to allow the plant to use its resources on usable fruit rather than on fruit which already have BER.

===

I think it might be stress do to water. The soil dries out quickly and the plants look a little wilty. So then I give them water (too much maybe? How much should potted tomatoes get a day?). Sometimes I water twice a day when it gets really hot.

Do you think the fluxuation in moisture is maybe causing this? Should I maybe move them to a bit more shade? Should I mulch them? Water more? Water less? Water deeply? Give only sips of Water?

7 gallons should be a good pot size. However, black pots absorb heat from the sun, and may overheat the roots. Covering the pot with something white, light-colored, or silver will deflect some of the heat.

And definitely mulch your tomatoes, regardless of whether they're planted in containers or in the ground! Mulch not only keeps the soil from drying out quite so fast, but it keeps the roots cooler. It keeps down weed growth as well. And it also lessens the chance of disease -- rainwater or watering-can water striking the soil can bounce soil microorganisms onto the leaves, which can result in Bad Diseases You Don't Want to Have.

Any time tomato plants look wilty, they need water. Withholding water will not help them. If they need water twice a day, then water them twice a day. Water until you see water coming out of the drain-holes.

But it's not always that easy. Peat, when dry, doesn't easily absorb water. When a pot filled with a peat-based mix dries out, the peat shrinks. Then when you water, the water just runs down the air spaces at the sides of the pot, leading you to believe the plant has enough moisture -- but nothing could be farther from the truth: the plant is actually dying of thirst. You may have to water slowly and repeatedly to really get the peat moist again. Small containers are an advantage here: you can pick them up and set them in a saucer full of water until they soak up as much as they can.

Thanks!

-missingtheobvious, you answered so many of my questions! Thank you so much!

The soil I used in the pots actually didn't have any peat, just top soil, compost, steer manure, and a bit of alfalfa. The mixture was rather heavey. Maybe that is why it dries out so fast?

I was watering deeply- until it came out the drainage holes- but was afraid I might be leaching out the nutrients. I suppose that is wrong though; I will water deeply from now on.

And I will go and get some mulch today (bark mulch okay to use?) and white trash bags to shade the pots.
CMK

Glad it was a help, christin. Any mulch should be fine -- you could even use shredded newspaper. The important thing is to insulate the soil, lessen evaporation, and prevent splashback of harmful microorganisms. In the ground, a mulch should add nutrients to the soil too, but I spose that's less important in container gardening.

Your soil sounds fine; peat's often used in potting mixes, but isn't necessary (plenty of debate on that topic).

Generally soil is described as "heavy" if it's high in clay content. Luckily I'm not in the clay-soil part of my county, so I really don't understand enough about clay soils to say anything about them.

I haven't grown tomatoes in containers (yet), but I gather that fertilizing needs to be done quite often because watering does wash the nutrients out the drain holes. Sorry -- there are things I know and things I don't know (and probably some things I only think I know).

You have been wonderful missingtheobvious (and somehow you knew my name was Christin!). Thanks to you and everyone for imparting some of your tomato knowledge to me. ;-)

Do you think pruning them and sniping a few suckers would do any good? Would the tomato concentrate its energy on developing healthy tomatoes?

It turns out another tomato- Green Zebra- now has it too. :-( I just mulched and am going to go and figure out how attach the white white trash bags. I am watering frequently.

I am really discouraged at this. I suppose there is always next year. On the positive side, Cherokee Purple is ready for eating tonight, and the Sungolds are delish.
CMK

Good thread...yet another reminder that I have yet to give any of my plants Epsom Salts this year. I sooo have to do that later today.