Tomatoes

[Georgie_girl]

So this is my first year attempting to grow anything. I picked tomatoes, because I enjoy them. However, it seems that every one either splits or gets a kind of seam on it before it is ripened. Any theories/ suggestions?

[Petee]

It could be the variety. Some of them tend to split when they ripen. However, it could also be that they are not getting regular watering. If they get dry at all, then they suddenly get a LOT of water, they will swell faster than the skin can stretch and just the skin will split. Could you add a picture?

 

Just pick anything that splits and use it immediately. Congratulations on getting tomatoes!

[lavender]

Tomatoes split because the inside of the tomato grows faster than the skin can accommodate the growth. Growth spurts are usually caused by uneven watering or excess watering. Tomatoes are more prone to splitting in a wet summer or a summer that has dry spells alternating with large amounts of rain. Anything that causes a growth spurt such as uneven fertilization or a succession of bright sunny days following cooler weather can cause splitting. 

You can try to keep your tomatoes watered on a regular basis to prevent this but there isn't much you can do to control the rainfall or weather.  

Fertilize lightly and more frequently. 

Those concentric scars are just another form of splitting where it heals. It seems to be genetic. 

Different varieties of tomatoes are more prone to cracking than others. Cherry tomatoes do it more often than regular tomatoes in my garden probably because they have such thin skin. A tougher skinned variety is less prone to splitting. Roma tomatoes rarely crack or split. This seems to be more of a problem in larger tomatoes than smaller ones. 

[Georgie_girl]

Thanks. It's probably the watering being an issue. I had no idea that could happen. Thank you both for the insight. They're beefeater tomatoes, I think that's what the package said.

[lavender]

Beefeaters are one of those large tomatoes that do crack. I grow a variety of tomatoes, more than I need, in a rather haphazard fashion. I don't water and fertilize when I think about it. My theory is that if one variety doesn't like the weather maybe one of the others will. Unless you grow just a few tomatoes controlling water is difficult and can be expensive. 

Here is a list of tomatoes from a nursery that grows them. http://rcwnurseries.com/data/stories_rcw/other/30_tomato-list.pdf It lists the following tomatoes as crack resistant: Big Beef, Carmello, First Lady, Simba and Solar Flare. The only one I have ever grown is Big Beef. I can't remember what it did. I like Celebrity for its ability to produce no matter what the weather. It has never cracked that I can remember. I did have very poor germination on it this year. There is nothing guaranteed in farming or gardening.