Hello Isabell,

Yes, it would be possible to have a phosphorus deficiency and BER (Blossom End Rot) at the same time. Your nitrogen may also be locked up from the wood chips. Do a Google search for "wood mulch and nitrogen" and you will find a slew of articles about wood chips tieing up the nitrogen in soil while they are decomposing.

What is below your raised bed? If it is decent soil, it should be able to support your tomatoes as their roots should go much deeper than the depth of many raised beds. I think the wood fines or "splinters" are contributing to your excess drainage. Unfortunately by watering so often for short periods of time, you are training your plants to grow shallow roots. If your soil won't hold moisture, you might want to get some of the water absorbing crystals and work them into the topsoil. (The further down the better, not easy with plants in place I know.) Because of the excess drainage issue, you probably need to treat your raised beds like they are big containers. With containers, plants have to be fed often because the water draining out of them leaches away the nutrients.

Carolyn137 wrote an excellent response to a question about Blossom End Rot (BER) and I am quoting it here:

With BER there is NO problem with absorption of Ca++ though the roots. The problem is maldistribution within the plant that can be induced by a number of stresses which include uneven delivery of water, too much N, growing in too rich soil, too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry you name it.

As the plants mature they can better handle the streses that can induce BER so usually it goes away.

The two exceptions are first, if the soil has NO Ca++ as confirmed with a soil test, and that's a rare condition, and second, if the soil is too acidic in which Case Ca++ is bound in the soil.

Again, adding lime, egg shells and on and on can not and will not prevent BER b'c absorption of Ca++ thru the roots is OK.

Paste tomatoes are especially susceptible to BER and I think someone in a post above mentioned that.

If you go to the top of this first page and click on the FAQ link and scroll down you'll also find an article about BER in case some of you have never looked at the FAQ's And there';s some darn good articles there as well, but I wouldn't pay any attention to the variety list b'c it's way out of date.

The old information about BER being caused solely by lack of soil Ca++ has been shown to be wrong with research that's been done in the last 20 years or so, but it's going to take another generation before the real story gets into books, websites, magazines, etc. Most of the better websites already have the correct information.

BER affects not only tomatoes, but peppers, squash, cabbage, cauliflower, etc., and it's a huge multimillion dollar problem for the industry, which is WHY all that reasearch was done. For instance, when tissues were taken from a plant that has BER fruits and was assayed for Ca++, the normal level of Ca++ was found, it just wasn't getting to the blossom end of fruits. And there's also a condition called internal BER where the fruits look fine, no evidence of BER externally, but when you cut open the fruit the inside is black

Hope that helps

Bone meal is slow release, I am not sure that it would help with a phosphorus deficiency this season.

The bottom line is that before you try to amend the soil with supplements, you should have a soil test done. You have enough issues going on that you need a good read on what is happening with your soil rather than guessing what to add to it. At this late a date in the season, any feeding you do, may need to be liquid.

Betsy

Thank you Betsy for the detailed information.
I think you are right, I need a soil test done, I was planning on getting one done end of this garden season, since it is so difficult to do anything at all with all the garden beds still filled.
I also think I need to get just some good loam and maybe some Rabbit or Horse manure to fix the drainage issue. It just drains way to much. Unfortunately all of that won't fix my vegetable garden now. I think I just have to forget about my winter garden this year and fix my soil for next year :(
With the beds draining so much, hardly anything sprouts anyway, the surface is much too dry for anything to grow. I couldn't grow any carrots this year, couldn't keep it moist enough, even with the 4 times of watering. I even pre-sprouted carrots in a grow box, transplanted them and only about 1/4 survived.
I gave everything a good amount of diluted worm bin tea today and just will fertilize with liquid Kelp and Fish fertilizer for the rest of the season.
I really think since I put so much of this 'ready made planting soil' into the beds everything is out of whack. The previous years I only added a few inches of this soil into my beds and had good results. I started moving to raised garden-beds about 2-3 years ago I didn't fill them all the way up, because I only was able to use what my compost bin and had a small pile of mint straw and 'ready made planting soil' (our truck was broken so we couldn't get any new stuff) those piles sat there for a year, so probably were well composted at that time. This year I decided to just fill all the beds up with that mix, I wanted it to be done, it is supposed to be their Cadillac of soils, big mistake I now know.
The soil in the garden otherwise is good, I had no problems all those years I just planted right into the ground, just amending with compost.

In my previous gardens I just amended my soils with Rabbit and Horse manure and I had wonderful, good producing gardens, hardly even fertilized.

Thank you again and have a wonderful growing season

I think you are "helping" your garden too much. Rake your leaves in the Fall put them on top in the Spring. Then try hard to leave it alone.