What is this blemish?

[MichelleL82]

I have just started harvesting my cherry tomatoes and since this is my first time growing them I am not sure what is normal or what is something that causes the fruit to be discarded. There is a greenish yellow spot beneath the skin of one of my tomatoes (picture attached) should I discard this tomatoe or is it a normal variance I should expect to see going forward?

 

[Owdboggy]

Either the beginning of blossom end rot which is caused by watering inconsistency or more likely a bit of water sitting on the skin and causing sunburn. If it bothers you, scrape it off.

 

[Anniekay]

I agree that it looks like the start of blossom end rot and that's from a calcium deficiency in your soil along with inconsistent watering. Tomatoes like slightly acid soil bit just slightly.

 

[MichelleL82]

How do you create acidic soil? I used a mix of garden soil with a small amount of potting mix mixed in. I currently grow in a raised flower bed like the single ones you see at your big box store not the kind that you build into the yard. I wanted to make sure I could grow successfully before investing the money into building the raised bed garden we have planned for the fall. I have seen soil testers at the store would that be a reccomendation you would make?

 

[Owdboggy]

Add a little bit of Lime to your compost mix, or crushed egg shells, You should not need much just a light sprinkling over the surface with the lime.
Not used a soil testing kit for many years so cannot help there. Certainly the electronic one I tried was not a lot of use.

 

[nao57]

You do want to add nutrients to the soil. You can do this also with campfire ash. You can use lots of things that people don't think about. And they are right about the crushed egg shells.

Now... I just want to add that its actually pretty common that you are going to see some imperfect tomatoes. Its very common. And they will be fine to eat. You can cut off the blemishes and the rest of it will be just fine. We do this every year. You can also smell test stuff. If its not smelling right trim more off. Especially for us its hard to not have the tops split open a bit from overwatering. But we just trim parts off that we don't like.

And you can can and preserve everything you can.

 

[MiTmite9]

How do you create acidic soil? I used a mix of garden soil with a small amount of potting mix mixed in. I currently grow in a raised flower bed like the single ones you see at your big box store not the kind that you build into the yard. I wanted to make sure I could grow successfully before investing the money into building the raised bed garden we have planned for the fall. I have seen soil testers at the store would that be a reccomendation you would make?

I've been growing tomatoes all of my gardening life (since 1970) and I never gave much thought to acidic soil. If you plant the tomatoes inground, you should mix in a generous amount of compost + some worm castings. (You don't need to add potting soil ---- unless you're growing in pots.) A good thing to add is crab + lobster shell. I tried that last year and it was terrific.

Small addition of lime is good. Eggshells, however, take forever to break down, so if you want to add a bit of calcium, get it at the nursery.

Also water deeply, rather than frequently (unless you live where temps get super high). Don't overhead water. Mix up some molasses and water (1/4 cup molasses per gallon of water) and add some of that to your plants. You can spray the leaves with molasses water, too.

One cool thing I learned recently is to gently "shake" the plants a couple times per day, when there are blossoms. This helps with pollination.

As for tomato hornworm, which you're bound to find at some point in time (grow organically!) ------in our garden we just plant extra tomato plants and share. Hornworms morph into beautiful moths.