North Dallas TX area

This is my second year to plant tomatoes. Last year I fought red spiter mites, but otherwise didn't have too many problems with my square-foot garden planted vines. I didn't have BER, but I didn't get much fruit set either, and the fruit I got was small.

This year I planted in Earthtainers, six Brandywine, two German Queen, two Early Girl, two Better Boy, four Rutgers, and eight Beefsteak.

I fought heavy infestations of red spider mites after the very cool and wet spring we had, but I finally overcame them with repeated applications of Neem.

I've had better fruit set than last year, and bigger fruit, but still no prolific production of tomatoes like I see in the pictures that other people post.

My problems now are heat, rats, and BER.

The temperatures are consistently in the upper 90s to around 100 daily, which I think is reducing fruit set. The plants are getting plenty of water thanks to the Earthtainer, so I don't think there is much else I can do to combat the heat.

I've had rats feeding on my tomatoes. They climb up the vines, apparently, because they'll get to tomatoes growing more than half way up the vines. Usually they'll eat out the inside of the tomato and leave the empty half to 3/4 whole shell hanging on the vine. Sometimes they'll just take a couple of small nibbles, but I still toss these tomatoes in the compost pile, as I don't care to share a tomato with a rat. I lost maybe 20 tomatoes to the rats before I figured out what was going on. I walked outside with a flashlight and caught one scampering down the vine to run away. I started putting rat traps in the containers at the bottom of the vines, and that was effective. Several rats have gone in the garbage can, and I haven't had a rat-chewed tomato in the past two days.

Now I'm losing tomatoes to BER. It seems to be hitting the tomatoes only after they have gotten pretty big, usually about the time I'm starting to think I'm going to have a really nice tomato. I put two cups of garden lime in each of the earthtainers just before I planted. I used Tomato-Tone fertilizer at the same time. The containers are mulched, and the soil doesn't seem overly wet.

I also have BER on my bell peppers, which are in the SFG. I had limed that soil very well too. I read that overwatering can cause BER, and I might be guilty of that, but I just don't think my peppers and other vegetables that I've planted in my SFG would survive the Texas heat with only an inch or two of water per week. They have to be water daily or they get pretty droopy and forlorn looking.

From what I've read, BER is best avoided by proper soil preparation before planting. I thought I'd done that by adding all that garden lime before planting, and I understand that adding more lime now probably won't help much.

I don't think I can fight the sun. The rats appear to be under control now. Can anyone help me with suggestions for fighting the BER?