At the beginning of the summer, I wrote a post on how to apply calcium into the potting mixture as you plant tomato seedlings, at the beginning of the growing season. This is normally good enough for about a month, at a time, in my experience. Hopefully, at this point, your plants have tons of blossoms and lots of fruits. Maybe even some ripe ones!
Well, it’s time for another calcium application to help avoid things like blossom end rot, seen here:
Blossom End Rot
ARGH! Luckily, this round only managed to take four little fruits. No sweat. I have dozens more across my plants.
Applying Calcium Solution To Tomato Plants
Materials needed:
- Calcium tablets (can be purchases for $10 or so from Walgreens or another drug store)
- Something to crush tablets (i.e. mortal and pestle)
- One gallon pitcher or jug. An old milk jog works great. Then you can shake up water and calcium.
- Hot Water
- Tomato Plants
Calcium Mortar Pestle Jug
Steps for application:
- Place 6-8 calcium tablets into the crushing device. I like to do two pills per tomato plants. Since I have 4, plus a Sweet Million Cherry Tomato, I go with 8. This gives me more than enough.
Calcium Supplement Tablets
- Crush.
Crushing The Calcium Supplement Tablets
- Ground these calcium tablets until it’s as fine as a powder as you can make it.
Calcium Powder
- Dump and dust the powder into the gallon jug.
- Using hot water, fill up your gallon jug. I like to stir as it goes along.
Streaming Water
- Let the jug sit for a few hours, to come to room temperature. You don’t want to burn the plants’ root systems. Agitate the mixture every once in a while (AKA stir).
Diluted Calcium Solution
- Apply to your tomato plants, dividing it equally and stirring between applications.
Calcium Solution Next To Tomatoes
Since I have sub-irrigated containers, I just pour the solution into the reservoir, and the roots soak up the calcium directly. You can apply this top-side, by just watering, if you don’t have self-watering or sub-irrigated planters.
I divide the mixture between the four tomato plants. For me, there is a little bit of powder in the bottom. I fill the container up with a quart of lukewarm water. Then I swirl the container vigorously and apply to my cherry tomato plant. I don’t love it enough to give it a full serving. It’s my red-headed step child.
Alternate Applications
If you need/want to skip the calcium solution, you can directly apply to the planting medium.
- Complete steps 1-3.
- Take powder and apply it to the potting mix or soil, around the tomato.
- Water.
You can also buy other organic mixes that you can use that might add other nutrients to the plants, as well.
If you have a favorite method of applying calcium, please let it in the comment section!
