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Add calcium to Garden?

3K views 18 replies 10 participants last post by  captndan 
#1 ·
I had tomato rot last year and was reading on line that one cause would be a lack of calcium in the soil. What kind of calcium can I buy to add to the garden? couple of retail names?
 
#6 ·
Uhhhh... Also cured their heartburn.


Next time just get a box of bone meal.. It's got an NPK of 4-12-0, so will be more useful than just calcium bicarbonate.
 
#11 ·
What most of us had kill their tomatoes here in the NE last year was NOT "blossom end rot" but the dreaded "blight". The cool temperatures and excessive rain/lack of sun last season did in vast amounts of home and commercial tomato crops. It was stated in the news that this blight was the same strain that caused the terrible Irish potato blight in the 1840/50's.

http://www.nysipm.cornell.edu/publications/blight/

Last year, some reported here that they were having good result overcoming blight by spraying a PH changing solution of water mixed with... "something" (I'm old, I forgot!:D). I want to be well armed this year and maybe a poster from last year with sucess doing the spraying will re-clue us for this season? I lost 2 experimental plastic pail/inverted pottings and 8 regular bucket pottings in less than 2 days to the blight.
 
#13 ·
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:crybaby:
 
#16 ·
Blossom End Rot (BER) is caused by a low calcium level in the plant. Notice I say "in the plant". Since calcium is affected by soil pH, a low pH can lock calcium in the soil making it unavailable to plants. Have the soil tested by a reputable lab or your county extension agent. You can dump 500 pounds of gypsum onto your tomato bed but if the pH is 5.8, it won't do any good. Also, spray on calcium products won't help much since calcium isn't easily absorbed through the stomata.
 
#18 ·
Do yourself a favor and throw the pH meter away. The ONLY way to accurately test your soil is to send it to a lab. The cost is minimal for a professional lab and free for most county extension offices. Most labs will also give you base saturation levels, macro and micro levels and a lot of other information. You might go to: http://al-labs-eastern.com/lawn_garden.html Their prices are excellent and they will email the results to you as well as mail a hard copy for no extra charge. Get the S3NE test for about $15.00 and post the results here. I can then help you fix the problem.
 
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