I expect, however, that this will be a little too traumatic for the plants and am wondering if I have any other options. I agree with all that Terry said above so a couple of alternatives for consideration: 1. add additional 6 or 8" boards to the beds and fill with additional quality soil/compost mix burying the plants that much deeper in the process (you mention they are tall enough to accommodate this). New roots will form all along the buried stems of the plants. Cut back on watering. 2. assuming the current plants are indeterminate varieties, take cuttings off them to root for replacements BEFORE carefully digging them up to making the bed deeper. After digging deeper in the bed to improve drainage, remove the existing green fruit and replant the current plants as deeply as possible. If they make it - great. If not you have the rooted cuttings to replace them with. 3. accept that first year gardens are always plagued with problems and little success and that this set-up was very flawed from the beginning. But in the hopes of getting some crop, leave the bed as it is and cut WAY back on your watering regimen since you now understand the drainage problems. And at the same time use a piece of rerod or something else long and sharp to stab additional deep drainage holes down through the soil and the plastic. Then plan to do a major over-haul on the beds this fall (strip out the plastic and make them at least 2x as deep). Just some ideas to consider. Dave

BER is almost entirely a water availability issue; the quality of the water is rarely a factor. If the roots can't take up enough water, then the plant can't push the necessary water-soluble nutrients to the ends of the fruit, and it's only the calcium whose absence has that sort of devastating effect. Studies have shown that calcium levels even in the plant stems are normal in BER cases. If your soil is alkaline, the calcium is there and available, so focus on root health... you say that soil moisture isn't a problem, but don't mention how much or how often the plants are watered. Frequent shallow waterings can lead to BER, which not many people realize, as can sudden shifts in daytime temperature even if you have a deep, even watering schedule. Bottom line, shallow or stressed root systems are the problem, as actual calcium deficiency is rare outside of hydroponics and very unlikely in alkaline desert soil. Make sure you're watering deeply every few days and monitor the soil moisture three or four inches down to check that it's evenly moist. --Alison

Our favorite tomato expert 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 So, unless you have had your soil professionally tested, and it is calcium deficient, adding calcium will make no difference. Betsy

Angie, probably some references in my faves, which is 2500, and so every time I have to add a new one, I go back and delete maybe 10 more. And I don't want to go back and skim through the list either since I'm just starting writing a FAQ for another message site on how to save seeds, The first article I wrote about BER was back in the mid-90s, and I've had to update several times. And over time one can click on a link and it has gone. The one I miss the most is the one where they found that plants that had BER fruits had normal levels of Ca++ in the vasculature of the plant. Another place to look to confirm what I wrote above are the several good state disease sites, such as TAMU and Cornell, and NC and FL and several more. The better places incorporate new info on a regular basis, based on info that their disease specialists find, by reading scientific papers ahem, And please don't refer to yourself as a geek, b'c that makes me a geek, if you look at my bio here since my whole professional life I had to read tons of scientific papers. LOL I know my answer is not as specific as you would like, but if you also Google BER ( spell it out and add tomatoes to your entry) at the top of the first Google page you will usually see scentific articles listed seperately. I'll let you do that if you want to and get back here and report back. LOL Carolyn