Unfortunantly, there is no magic product on the market to deal with BER (though some claim to do so). The only thing that effectivly combats BER is: 1. Even watering - Avoid drought/drown as this is the most common culprit 2. Don't over-fertilize - If a plant has too much foliage it will pull the calcium to benefit the plant at the cost of the fruit. A good rule of thumb for fertilizing tomatoes is a well balanced fertilizer applied just after transplant and just before fruit-set. 3. Check the pH balance - Tomatoes love a slightly acidic soil. About pH 6.3-6.8 7.0 is almost the upper range of tolerance. Above 7.2 and you will need to work in some garden sulpher to bring it back down. 4. When you are preparing your containers, be sure you work in plenty of compost (1/3 by volume). I'm not sure how prone to BER Early Girl is specificly, though you are correct that some varieties are particularly prone to BER, with the Paste varieties being especially notorious. Sometimes you can do everything just perfect and still get BER. Plants that are under stress will also develop BER but will usually fix it's-self as the plant grows up and becomes better able to handle the stress. The best possible advise I could give you is to pop over to the Growing Tomatoes Forum and ask Carolyn. She's a microbioligist and true-blue tomato expert, and is the one who's taught me everything I know about BER :D Best Wishes Amino-X

Sheri, The blossoms themselves have nothing to do with blossom end rot. It is really just a physiological problem involving calcium uptake, and the blossom has nothing to do with that--once the fruit has set, the blossom is just "an innocent bystander". You can pick the blossom off after a fruit has formed, but it won't have any effect either way. I think you and I both should be VERY grateful that our plants are alive and producing in this wild and wacky weather, because it appears we are in the minority who are having success. One of my "old rancher" neighbors stopped by to see me yesterday. He said he was being nosy and just wanted to know how my tomatoes were doing. I told him that it was a rough year and that I was getting ripe tomatoes, but not as many and not as early as in previous years. He told me that "no one" in Love County was getting any tomatoes at all---well, that is, except for the two of us. He ran down the long list of tomato growers we both know, and some that I don't know, describing what was wrong with their plants or what had happened to their plants. He described the plants of one of his friends who farms down on sandy river-bottom soil as being totally defoliated ("not a single leaf") and wanted to know why. I told him I assumed they were in high water underground since he was so close to the river, and that the leaf drop was a sign the plants weren't going to make it. He said that was what he thought too. He then asked me what I was doing with my tomatoes, and I told him we'd been eating them. I told him I made a big pot of spaghetti sauce earlier in the week, and a big pot of tortilla soup later in the week. He asked if I made them with my green tomatoes, and I told him I used ripe ones. (I didn't really understand his question----was he trying to imply I didn't have ripe tomatoes?) Anyway, I think maybe he was hoping I would offer him some of our ripe tomatoes---but I didn't. I have plans for them, and I know he IS getting ripe tomatoes, so I am not giving him mine. What I think he REALLY wanted was for me to give him 5 or 10 gallons of ripe tomatoes to take and give away to all his farmer/rancher buddies who have suffered a tomato crop failure this year. I did that in 2004, but I am not giving as many away this year because I feel like the harvest could cease anytime, especially if the rain continues. So, there you have it....I am being selfish and stingy and not giving away tomatoes this year, and I am unapologetic about it. In the good years, I give away hundreds of tomatoes, but in the bad years, everyone else is on their own. After what I have had to go through to get this harvest, it is not walking out the door with someone else. Isn't that a terrible attitude--I am NOT usually like that. I really cherish each and every tomato I get this year, though, because it has been such a hard year and a large harvest is not guaranteed. With six inches of rain since Friday evening, I am afraid my plants are in serious trouble. Watch your plants---they can go downhill VERY fast at this point. If the yellowing progresses rapidly up the plants, you can take cuttings from the healthiest foliage at the top of the plant and root them in water or soil. In just a couple of weeks those cuttings will provide you with new plants in case yours decline/die quickly. I have gone from a garden full of semi-healthy plants to a garden full of dead plants in about a month's time in very rainy weather. Once the sun comes out and begins stressing plants already stressed by excessive moisture, early blight and other problems gather steam like a fast freight train. Dawn

Well it's been almost a week since you posted, so I'll give it a shot. Did you examined the inside of the tomato, looking for very small grubs (larvae)? Were there any very small dark spots anywhere on the green tomato? Hard for me to believe this is a systemic, or nutritional problem, but that can't be ruled out either.

Thanks seysonn for the reassurance I'm not able to lose my entire crop! :) I agree about the calcium thing being too complex, when it comes to analyzing soil and trying to get it prefect a person could go crazy.... which is why I try to stick to a less is more approach. That being said BER still scares me... lol And I also agree that maintaining a constant/consistent soil moisture is difficult. In fact, when and how much to water is usually an on going disagreement between myself and my husband. He thinks the BER was from over watering... so I've held back ... a bit... but I'm not about to let things dry out in between watering like he suggests. We'll just keep our fingers crossed and try to keep a consistent moisture level and hope for the best. :)