Fruit Production/Blossom Rot - to pH test or not?

Burnsy · **Posted:** Thu Oct 18, 2012 3:47 pm

Stolen from the capsicum thread

Simo wrote:

:wave: Hi Burnsy, I have had a bumper year with both zucchini and pumpkin, but they were in virgin beds so no lack of nutrients, in AP my pumpkin is growing great but producing very few female flowers and failing to set fruit, I have seen heaps of bees in the flowers so I don't think pollination is a problem.

I was telling a gardening guru about this the other day and he said is sound like lack of potassium, maybe your beds are potassium deficient :dunno:

try some potash and see how you go

Getting back to this, my vegetable fruit production other than tomatoes has been shocking for the past two seasons. I believe I have been having problems with high nitrogen combined with possasium and calcium defficiency causing blossom rot. This year I am dosing my beds with gypsum and potash which will hopefully over come the issue and have me producing bucket loads of capsicum, zucchini's and pumpkins again.

I have been thinking of getting a pH soil test kit but don't know if I should start with this as it seems it may be just over complicating things. Does anyone use one, what brand/type do you recommend and is it useful?

Also has anyone else overcome blossom rot and what did you do to do it?

Faye · **Posted:** Sat Nov 03, 2012 5:10 pm

Certain tomato varieties may be more susceptible to blossom end rot than others. Shell grit contains calcium so feed it to your chickens and then get their waste and deep litter (some of that good stuff ) around your tomatoes. Eco fungicide is potassium bicarbonate, organic certified and food grade, it encourages flowering and fruiting. Make sure that your veges get lots of sun too, they need it to produce flowers.

Simo · **Posted:** Sat Nov 03, 2012 9:04 pm

I have never done it but I think I should because it gives you the info you need to diagnose your problem and how to attack it. All the garden experts start with a pH test before adding anything to the soil.

Burnsy · **Posted:** Fri Nov 09, 2012 12:28 am

Ended up putting the pH test into the to hard basket and just have a heap of elemental nutrients to use in the garden with this year as well as the normal nitrogen based ones. In particular some possasium and calcium ones but others like the folia spray for my vines contain a bit of everything.

What was it you said Faye "tickle the soil with a bit of love" or something :thumb:

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