QuickTake:

Blossom end rot looks bad and sounds worse. Fortunately, there are remedies.

You put in those little plants in May. Nurse them through hot, cold, wet and dry spells. Keep the weeds down. Keep the neighbors’ cat away, and provide them with a cage for moral and physical support.

Finally, you see some tasty red fruit, pick it and get ready for an even more luscious salad, or a delicious BLT. But when you turn the tomato over, the nonstem end is all brownish green. You have blossom end rot, known as BER. Even the name is unappetizing. And the look is worse.

There are a lot of things you can do to fix the problem — not on the current tomatoes, but on the next batch that are still just flowers now. And one of the remedies actually works.

Common wisdom focuses on lack of calcium in the soil and uneven watering. Liming your soil might help next year, and mulching around the plants to keep the soil more evenly moist can also make a difference. Some people sprinkle a little powdered milk around the plants. There are even fertilizers (chemical fertilizers that head right through the soil if you use too much) that claim to stop BER.

But my favorite tried-and-true remedies are time and variety. Time is easy — except when the B is frying and you really need the T for your BLT. (Your lettuce is probably bolted anyway unless you got a second planting to sprout in June, which I did.) 

Fortunately, BER usually tapers off as the season goes on. The first roma tomatoes always get BER. As the season progresses, far fewer fruits have the affliction. This has been my experience — but only for the last 60 years.

On standard tomatoes, you can often cut off the bad area, but be vigilant on romas. The rot often goes all the way to the stem inside the fruit. Picking off the fruit with BER will give it more energy to put into the nonaffected tomatoes. 

I always plant several varieties (a beefsteak, big beef, Oregon spring, and whatever is on sale in little six packs). It is common to have one variety get more BER than others. BER is rare in cherry tomatoes, and they produce so many, it is almost a relief if a few of them don’t mature.

This looks like a bumper tomato year, so do a little experimenting. I will. Try some mulch on a few plants, be diligent about watering another, and as the plants get old, maybe switch from milk to a can of Ensure, which has calcium.  

If you try something different — and especially if you get results — let me know. I can share your ideas before next year’s garden season.