Why are my Toms so darn ugly and spliting and rotting?

[harleysilo]

I guess this is what all the Heirloom tomato rave is about! Oh look i'm growing really old strains of special tomatoes that taste wonderful, you just have to throw away half of them and can only eat half of each tomato that makes it to maturity without .......seriously though, i'm losing a lot of tomatoes to these huge gaping splits in the sides on a few varieties and some of the others are cracking open all around where the stem joins the tom. In addition 1 other species is suffering BER. Heck the only plants doing decent At the moment are the Black Cherries. I know this thread is pointless without pics som I'll take some tonight so we can get to the bottom of this.

[harleysilo]

One a side note, the wife and i tried a Black Russian tom that was ripe last night, just had a small crack around it like a belt (which had heeled over). It was delicious. She could believe it. She was like I don't like the way it looks all deep purple with green seed juice but it tastes awesome..;....

[mdvpc]

Harley-Some varieties have a tendency to split, but yours are probably splitting because of unequal watering-that is, maybe it rained a lot and the tomatoes took up too much water into the fruit-that will cause swelling of the fruit and splitting. Same thing is related to ber. Splitting is definitely related to watering issues.

[feldon30]

Have you got pictures?

Are you harvesting them the moment the start to turn color?

[harleysilo]

Originally Posted by feldon30

Have you got pictures?

Are you harvesting them the moment the start to turn color?

I will have pictures in the morning. No I don't harvest them the moment they start to turn. My wife likes us to wait till they are ripe. I saw your post in the other thread. I'm interested to here why you pick them before they are ripe and how you store them till they are ripe.

[Raymondo]

We get torrential summer rains so in the past I've lost a lot to splitting because of it. Now, if heavy rainfall is predicted I pick all the ripe and near ripe fruit. Last season I lost almost none to splitting. I pick a lot of near ripe fruit anyway and just let them finish indoors. Saves a lot of heartache!

[Lee]

Also keeps the fruit worms from getting them.
They seem to know when the fruit is about to turn!

Lee

[feldon30]

Originally Posted by harleysilo

I will have pictures in the morning. No I don't harvest them the moment they start to turn. My wife likes us to wait till they are ripe. I saw your post in the other thread. I'm interested to here why you pick them before they are ripe and how you store them till they are ripe.

Of course everyone's taste is different, but I have found there to be no difference in flavor from picking early to waiting until completely ripe. So why take the chance?

[dice]

Maybe cut that 5 gallons per plant every other day back to 3 or 4
gallons (try 3 on one big-fruited one, 4 on another, see what happens). Might reduce the splitting.

[harleysilo]

Originally Posted by dice

Maybe cut that 5 gallons per plant every other day back to 3 or 4
gallons (try 3 on one big-fruited one, 4 on another, see what happens). Might reduce the splitting.

I haven't actually watered them in two weeks cause of all the recent rain. But I haven't watered the ones in the front yard at all and they are living. Maybe I should reduce the amount of watering....

[harleysilo]

[harleysilo]

The worst one, and what I think these will look like in a week or two I don't have a picture of because it went over the fence, but you could look right down in the large cracks into the tomato....

[shelleybean]

Some varieties are just prone to radial cracking, including some hybrids I've grown, not just heirlooms. Most of those look split due to rain though. So it seems you must choose between picking a little earlier and letting them finish ripening on the counter or leaving them outside where you lose a lot more of the fruit. I don't mind picking mine a little early personally. And if I see the fruit is already split from rain, I pick it right away.

[dice]

Heavy rain will do it. I picked a lot of just-blushed ones last year
because we were having rain about every other week. Whenever
it would rain for hours or days on end, almost ripe tomatoes
would split.

(Not a problem this year so far. It was too cold to ripen any
tomatoes early, and it has not been raining for weeks.)

[feldon30]

I pick way before that point, especially there is rain in the forecast. If I wait until they are ripe, I would get very few tomatoes.

Nice basil!