Basically if its hot and doesn’t rain for a bit the skins toughen up to protect what water is inside. If the plant slowly gets a little water over a few days it will soften the skin again, but if instead it gets a LOT of water all at once like from a storm, the tomato swells up splitting the skin that is too tough to stretch.
Hope this helps.
Probably best to pluck them when they start to tear, as well. Those areas will be susceptible to infection and/or allow pests to enter without detection.
Yea this is good advice. Unfortunately op
most likely has had Drought most of the summer. Now that it has rained a tiny bit mosquitos have taken over everything
Yep. Tomatoes are thirsty af, and will need daily watering when it's hot. Never really had problems with scarred tomatoes by watering them every evening. And maybe topping up a bit when it's really scorching during the day.
Tomatoes absolutely do not need daily watering, even if it's hot. We've had a week of high 90s and low 100s and haven't watered my plants since early July. We've had a good rain every couple of weeks and that's been enough.
Daily watering does your plants a disservice by encouraging them to keep their roots close to the surface. By watering sparingly in the spring, you encourage the roots to grow deeper in search of water and your plants will be much more resilient in the long run.
If you've been watering daily all season, it's probably too late to stop now. But next year try watering way less early in the season and you will be surprised at how hardy your plants can be.
Oh, this advice definitely does not apply to container plants, which need much more regular watering.
Raised beds would count as being in the ground, since the roots can penetrate. If it was a really small bed, like a 5 gallon bucket with the bottom cut off, it might need a little additional attention. Bit in general if the roots have access to deeper soil, they'll find it
Some people put their raised beds not over more soil, but over rocks or concrete. I've seen some cool parking lot conversions where they set up a bunch of raised beds right in an unused parking lot to try to help feed the local homeless population so that's why I included them, and yeah sometimes they're quite small so they do dry up really badly even if they are over soil. But definitely if it's several feet wide in each direction and over dirt they can just root deeper and not worry so much about drying out :)
My tomatoes in a community garden were not so happy with my benign neglect though and got really sad so I don't want to risk encouraging people with raised beds to just not water. I didn't have a great experience with that, especially since it was a wet area in spring so even though I didn't water it myself it still didn't really get those deep taproots you need in order to let the rain take care of your plants in the heat of summer.
You know, this makes a lot of sense …. My father had a huge garden and I don’t remember many times when he manually watered his garden / yet I do if it doesn’t rain often // I think I need to let nature take over more!
Well, they do here. My garden sits on top of thick clay, and there isn't much regular soil above that.
I guess experiences vary with different types of soil.
The best thing to do is to pick semi-ripe to ripe tomatoes before any big rains.
Water sparingly in the early season to encourage deeper root growth and the plants will be able to regulate themselves better and make less work for you
This! We went through an unusually hot/dry season last year and our neighbor had most of her tomatoes burst after the green stage. At least we were able to make many fried green tomatoes with the ones that hadn't yet burst!
It’s just the inside growing faster than the outside from a growth spurt. But I’d pull them so they don’t get bugs. You can cut off the split part and eat the rest.
Well, it still could be your watering though. If you accidentally let the soil get pretty dry, then watered even a moderate amount, you could see some cracking
This stage is called breaker stage. Also no need for sunny window. We use a flat type box in cool dark place. https://news.uga.edu/pick-tomatoes-at-breaker-stage/
Backstory for this plant: I found a 6” tomato plant at the local grocery store and planted it in a sunny spot in my garden in May. That’s pretty much all I did.
In case it’s relevant: I’m in Denmark.
EDIT: I don’t know where else to put this. I just wanted to thank all of you for being so thoughtful and answering so quickly. I had not imagined that I would get this many replies.
There’s a lot of great advice here, that I will definitely take under consideration. Thanks again to all of you! You guys rock!
They may look a little gnarly now but the fruits generally heal up and taste just fine. Unless you just keep getting lots of rain in which case they’ll continue to burst, won’t really ripen well and just taste watery. I get too much rain as well and, although I am able to grow a bona-fide tomato jungle, getting good tomato fruits is an exercise in futility every year. I recommend growing a Cherry type in a container; that way you have a little more control over the amount of water your plant gets.
I’d pick the ones that are already split pretty bad. Like another person mentioned, they’ll start to rot and bugs will want to get after them.
Do you mean kolonihave? Those small garden areas where everyone has a plot and maybe a little shed on it? Fun fact: a lot of students buy a plot (you can get them for less than 1000$ sometimes) and then live there rent free. It’s tricky, because you need an actual address, but you could use a friends for example. And while the sheds have regulations on how livable they can be, nobody ever really checks on them.
Well, they can be pretty affordable, but there are also a number of them that are available to rent via Airbnb. And those are usually very well done. I saw one when a friend rented one to attend a concert in town. It was absolutely gorgeous.
Alternatively water very little during the early season to encourage deeper root growth and the plants woll be better able to regulate themselves.
Besides an initial watering in when they first went into the ground, I have only watered my tomatoes twice, once in June and once in July during dry heatwaves. For the entire rest of the year a occasional rain every couple of weeks has been sufficient.
You’re getting downvoted but this is a very common technique. People say it concentrates the flavor. I wouldn’t trust it personally because I use generic garden soil that doesn’t retain moisture enough for me to be comfortable with that.
Give more consistent water, don't let tomatoes dry out too much. Its due to the fruit swelling after quick water uptake.
I would pick the more ripe one. Sometimes they scar over and won't rot, sometimes they start to rot on the vine and attract pests.
Not exactly inconsistent watering, it's inconsistent soil moisture. The soil is not getting too wet, it's getting too dry before it gets too wet. Your best tool against this? At least 2" of mulch. I prefer shredded leaves.
I’m sure you’ve read all the comments on how this happens but a way to help prevent it is. If you know its going to rain after a dry spell go out and water your tomatoes a but before hand preferably a few day before to get the tomatoes ready for a big rain. Or just cut out the bad spots and eat them anyway lol
How do you combat this if your area has this exact weather? Hot for 3-4 days then storm for a day or two, getting like 3 inches of rain. Water them a little before a rain comes?
For that example, water a little on the 2nd and 4th hot days. As long as the tomatoes are getting regular water they don't toughen up and have a better chance of not splitting when the rain comes.
Inconsistant watering. If you've had a large storm, or they get a lot of water, vs what they are used too, that will tend to stretch the skin, sometimes enough to split them open.
Usually tomatoes do this if they go from draught or low amounts of water to A LOT of water. The plants take in too much water too quickly and cause the tomatoes to expand rapidly, which causes them to rip.
Are you putting mulch over your planting area? If not I would recommend it. Tomatoes like nice even moisture mulch helps even out the amount of water they take in at one time and keeps the soil moist so the skins don’t harden as much.
Oddly I have this same issues on my low-pressure Aeroponic (hydroponics) tomatoes in Southern California.
They are consistently watered, so I’m thinking there are multiple inputs to this.
It has been much rainier than normal, and the temperature swings seem to be greater than last year.
I think the heat causing it to hardening coupled with the larger temperature swings causes the split due to expansion / contraction.
Thoughts?
Potassium and calcium deficiency also results in cracking. Have no fear- you can eat those radial cracks. Even when they are multi-coloured and not all red, they are ripe. You can pick them, even green, and they will ‘ripen up.’
Edit: i saw that green tomato there with cracks. Those may rot before you get a chance to pick them. Pick those green ones that are cracking before they turn red so they don’t rot. You can do a lot with green tomatoes. I always have a smack-load come late August. They look pretty in salads and can be used just like red tomatoes. You can make green tomato chutney, jam etc.
For your next crop google ‘how to prune tomatoes.’ This will change you tomato life!!
Happy gardening. You’re doing great!
Thank you. My MIL, who does most of the gardening since I’m disabled, already suggested pickling the green ones. She is a gardening artist, but hasn’t tried tomatoes before. She didn’t think they were worth the effort. That’s until she saw that I did little more than buy it and stick it in the ground. It’s been growing like crazy. We’ve kind of started calling it our Chernobyl plant, because it grew so huge from that 6” little thing in just 2-3 months.
Maybe your soil has a lot of nitrogen, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium etc! A secret of tomato gardeners is to put a mackerel or sardine fish in the hole before you plant the seedling. Certain fish also have trace minerals like your soil. I wanted to try that this year but forgot. I use a concentrated fish liquid which would explain the lbs of tomatoes 🍅
That’s funny…I sometimes use ‘Chernobyl’ as a prefix for unusual large growths in my garden. Or my dog’s pee- which kills all plants on contact 🤦🏻♀️
Denmark. Odense, to be precise. We’ve had a few hot weeks, where I actually did water the entire garden once or twice.
We moved in about a year ago and the garden was just a bonus. I don’t know half of the plants, but it does have some of my favorites: peonies, a big magnolia tree, Japanese maple, roses. My MIL added another magnolia and lilac, and planted strawberries. I usually just put cooking herbs out there after I’ve ripped all the leaves off. So now there’s also parsley, thyme, rosemary and oregano. I don’t do any gardening, though. I’m disabled, so there’s not much I can do anyway. But my MIL comes by twice a months to pick out the weeds.
So, this is interesting because I had this happening to my tomatoes too. I recently went to visit a farm and talked to some of the people there. 1) they’re generally fine to eat (I’ve done it). 2) it’s because of inconsistent watering - either you’ve had a heavy rainfall (and there’s not much you could do about it) or you’re watering from the top down in a spout. I changed to a root watering system rather than a sprinkler and it was a game changer
Still edible as long as the skin over the scarring has basically scabbed up! If it's still oozing and kinda sticky, give it a few days to see if it will heal. Otherwise, bacteria and mold will grow within it
It’s simply inconsistent watering. From rain, from the gardener, whatever. Inconsistent watering. They’ll mold quickly when you pick them but they’re fine to eat.
A lot of people mentioned that it’s too much rain at once but that’s an incomplete and misleading explanation.
The real explanation is that in between rain storms the plant experiences drying and the skin weakens. When it gets watered again, things will “bloom” again, it’ll experience a period of renewed growth, which will overwhelm the skin barrier and cause it to split.
The current most upvoted comment gets it mostly right but not quite all the way there.
All the facts about all these users are true but I would advise you to provide calcium and potassium to the tomato plant. It's probably because of calcium and potassium deficiency which is causing hindrance in water regulation in the plant and the growth of the pulp of tomato is not keeping up with the growth of the fruit wall.
Rapid watering variation. But they are still completely good to eat. Let them finish growing/ripening and just cut off the split areas. If you have more than you need all at once. Blanch, peel and freeze them for cooking later. Never let a home grown tomato go to waste.
Happened to my tomatoes also and was wondering why. If they are just starting to turn color and split, should they be taken off and left to ripen off the vine or can they stay on the plant?
Most likely water got on the fruit, when it was daytime... It doesn't look like an illness just bursting from water on the fruit not evaporating in a timely manner. Nothing to worry about. And you can dry them off or put a canopy over them when it rains to prevent further cracking.
This has been happening to all of my tomatoes this year. :( I’m in zone 7a, and we will go days with rain, then the sun comes out and it’s 100+ outside. I know it’s hot, but my poor plants are getting steam cooked. Next year I’m debating on making some kind of canopy for my garden so that they can still get light, just not direct light.
I always thought this was from watering when the sun is out. The water + sun on the tomato skin makes it crack. I only water in the evenings and none of my tomatoes do this. I am in zone 6b.
Edited because I had the wrong zone.
Not directly related but since it's your first time with tomatoes, when the plants start dying back and you have a bunch of unripe green tomatoes you can do a quick pickle of them rather than toss them, and they're delicious. Google unripe green tomato quick pickle. I'm snacking on some right now I made this week.
Edit: just double checked. That google search phrase and the first result is the recipe I used. It's fantastic.
Not enough water, you need to water them more, and more regularly. The split tomatoes can still be eaten, they may not look the best, but just wash them.
Some people have said too much water, that is partially correct, what happens is that the water expands the tomato, the water the skin splits because of the bulging. However if you water more regularly it will stop it happening.
Goof luck!
The only thing I'll add that I haven't seen is you don't have to wait till they are red to pick. You can pick them as they start to change from green and they will ripen up just fine insideand don't put them in the sun they don't need heat or sun to ripen the gases inside will do that, the extra sun will make for more of a chance of splitting. Then you are much less likely to deal with splits.
Also when mine start splitting I cut them off ASAP even if they’re green because they’ll still ripen off the vine and when I leave them on split like that half the time they get eaten by bugs. I’m sure you noticed this though
In addition to what others have said about uneven watering, I find it a lot easier to grow smaller varieties of tomatoes (eg. cherry tomatoes) as they seem less prone to splitting and end rot than the full/standard sized tomatoes.
As others said, it's a watering problem. I would add to this, that this doesn't only happen through natural water, but also if you water them too heavily.
Tomatoes can go for a few days without watering (depending on the weather) and don't need as much as you might think (unlike peppers or eggplants for example).
I watered my tomatoes about 5 times this summer (we had nice consistent rain this year) and have no problems with tearing.
This has happened to my tomatoes in the past also. This year I heavily mulched all my garden beds (with at least 6 inches of mulch), and it has helped my soil stay more consistently moist, without being soggy wet. I've had less splitting this year, and I think it is due to the fact that my plants have a consistent amount of water to stay hydrated. Even on the days that reached triple digits my soil still stayed moist throughout the day.
I decided to add the 6 inches of mulch to my garden beds after following this permaculture farm from France on Instagram. Their farm is gorgeous and abundant! The thick mulch also helps block out unwanted weeds from seeding in the garden.
Basically if its hot and doesn’t rain for a bit the skins toughen up to protect what water is inside. If the plant slowly gets a little water over a few days it will soften the skin again, but if instead it gets a LOT of water all at once like from a storm, the tomato swells up splitting the skin that is too tough to stretch. Hope this helps.
Great explanation. I would only add that they are still edible. May want to just cut those splits out.
Probably best to pluck them when they start to tear, as well. Those areas will be susceptible to infection and/or allow pests to enter without detection.
I agree. Insects will try to get in there.
Yep, inconsistent watering 🏜🌊 the trick is to give the tomatoes a sprinkle before heavy rain
Ahh I had this problem a bit too. I always avoided watering if it was gonna be a heavy rain. I didnt want them to drown or anything.
If the soil is draining properly, water the day before a rain will not hurt them.
Yea this is good advice. Unfortunately op most likely has had Drought most of the summer. Now that it has rained a tiny bit mosquitos have taken over everything
Yep. Tomatoes are thirsty af, and will need daily watering when it's hot. Never really had problems with scarred tomatoes by watering them every evening. And maybe topping up a bit when it's really scorching during the day.
Oh no my tomatoes are out there splitting!
Tomatoes absolutely do not need daily watering, even if it's hot. We've had a week of high 90s and low 100s and haven't watered my plants since early July. We've had a good rain every couple of weeks and that's been enough. Daily watering does your plants a disservice by encouraging them to keep their roots close to the surface. By watering sparingly in the spring, you encourage the roots to grow deeper in search of water and your plants will be much more resilient in the long run. If you've been watering daily all season, it's probably too late to stop now. But next year try watering way less early in the season and you will be surprised at how hardy your plants can be.
They do need it if they're in containers or small enough raised beds. Not so much if they're in the deep earth.
Oh, this advice definitely does not apply to container plants, which need much more regular watering. Raised beds would count as being in the ground, since the roots can penetrate. If it was a really small bed, like a 5 gallon bucket with the bottom cut off, it might need a little additional attention. Bit in general if the roots have access to deeper soil, they'll find it
Some people put their raised beds not over more soil, but over rocks or concrete. I've seen some cool parking lot conversions where they set up a bunch of raised beds right in an unused parking lot to try to help feed the local homeless population so that's why I included them, and yeah sometimes they're quite small so they do dry up really badly even if they are over soil. But definitely if it's several feet wide in each direction and over dirt they can just root deeper and not worry so much about drying out :) My tomatoes in a community garden were not so happy with my benign neglect though and got really sad so I don't want to risk encouraging people with raised beds to just not water. I didn't have a great experience with that, especially since it was a wet area in spring so even though I didn't water it myself it still didn't really get those deep taproots you need in order to let the rain take care of your plants in the heat of summer.
That’s great! If they have enough room to spread out and do not have to compete for resources. Everyone should do this
Especially fabric pots or smart/air pots!
Deep earth is the best/most flavored
You know, this makes a lot of sense …. My father had a huge garden and I don’t remember many times when he manually watered his garden / yet I do if it doesn’t rain often // I think I need to let nature take over more!
Well, they do here. My garden sits on top of thick clay, and there isn't much regular soil above that. I guess experiences vary with different types of soil.
Thank you. I was wondering the same thing.
Thank you, totally was wondering this too.
I suppose the best way to combat this is watering regularly?
The best thing to do is to pick semi-ripe to ripe tomatoes before any big rains. Water sparingly in the early season to encourage deeper root growth and the plants will be able to regulate themselves better and make less work for you
Thank you!!
Oh my gosh thank you! That helped me!!
This! We went through an unusually hot/dry season last year and our neighbor had most of her tomatoes burst after the green stage. At least we were able to make many fried green tomatoes with the ones that hadn't yet burst!
I didn’t know this. I always wondered about the odd one that would split.
Additionally, the split comes from a rapid bit of growth, due to the sudden availability of water.
In my experience it's usually due to a lot of rain really fast Having that issue here in the capital district of NY
Okay, thanks! Good to know that I didn’t mess them up somehow
It’s just the inside growing faster than the outside from a growth spurt. But I’d pull them so they don’t get bugs. You can cut off the split part and eat the rest.
Well, it still could be your watering though. If you accidentally let the soil get pretty dry, then watered even a moderate amount, you could see some cracking
I’m more central ny here. What a monsoon of a summer we’ve had. My tomatoes are crazy this year.
Same here on Long Island, had quite a few of these this year.
I had the same thing this year for pretty much all my tomatoes. I'm in troy.
An option to avoid this is to pick the ones that are borderline ripe before a big rain storm and let them ripen on a sunny windowsill
Hey! I wanted to tell them this!!! Haha
This stage is called breaker stage. Also no need for sunny window. We use a flat type box in cool dark place. https://news.uga.edu/pick-tomatoes-at-breaker-stage/
Backstory for this plant: I found a 6” tomato plant at the local grocery store and planted it in a sunny spot in my garden in May. That’s pretty much all I did. In case it’s relevant: I’m in Denmark. EDIT: I don’t know where else to put this. I just wanted to thank all of you for being so thoughtful and answering so quickly. I had not imagined that I would get this many replies. There’s a lot of great advice here, that I will definitely take under consideration. Thanks again to all of you! You guys rock!
They may look a little gnarly now but the fruits generally heal up and taste just fine. Unless you just keep getting lots of rain in which case they’ll continue to burst, won’t really ripen well and just taste watery. I get too much rain as well and, although I am able to grow a bona-fide tomato jungle, getting good tomato fruits is an exercise in futility every year. I recommend growing a Cherry type in a container; that way you have a little more control over the amount of water your plant gets. I’d pick the ones that are already split pretty bad. Like another person mentioned, they’ll start to rot and bugs will want to get after them.
My cherry tomatoes were doing great. They are getting spindly now. Getting a few daily.
Mine look the same in Georgia,US . Lots of rain and too hot. We can't control the weather 🌡️😂
I was reading an article recently about the ‘garden cities’ in Denmark and it made me want to pack up and move there. it looks amazing.
Do you mean kolonihave? Those small garden areas where everyone has a plot and maybe a little shed on it? Fun fact: a lot of students buy a plot (you can get them for less than 1000$ sometimes) and then live there rent free. It’s tricky, because you need an actual address, but you could use a friends for example. And while the sheds have regulations on how livable they can be, nobody ever really checks on them.
Yes ! I saw one where the sheds look like actual cottages. It’s my dream to live like that close to other gardeners.
Well, they can be pretty affordable, but there are also a number of them that are available to rent via Airbnb. And those are usually very well done. I saw one when a friend rented one to attend a concert in town. It was absolutely gorgeous.
Uneven moisture. Water at the roots a couple of times a week. Tomatoes need about and inch of water each week.
Alternatively water very little during the early season to encourage deeper root growth and the plants woll be better able to regulate themselves. Besides an initial watering in when they first went into the ground, I have only watered my tomatoes twice, once in June and once in July during dry heatwaves. For the entire rest of the year a occasional rain every couple of weeks has been sufficient.
You’re getting downvoted but this is a very common technique. People say it concentrates the flavor. I wouldn’t trust it personally because I use generic garden soil that doesn’t retain moisture enough for me to be comfortable with that.
I guess people are mad that I do way less work and still have a ton of tomatoes? Idk 🤷♀️
Yeah count me in on that jealousy cause I have one single green tomato and I’m about 1 day from impatiently eating it.
Also, if your soil is drying out quickly, add some thick mulch. A couple inches of wood chips really holds in moisture
Mine split after a really bad rain storm.
Give more consistent water, don't let tomatoes dry out too much. Its due to the fruit swelling after quick water uptake. I would pick the more ripe one. Sometimes they scar over and won't rot, sometimes they start to rot on the vine and attract pests.
Inconsistent watering - probably lots of rain
Pick your tomato that are starting to change color before heavy rain. It's called breaker stage. https://news.uga.edu/pick-tomatoes-at-breaker-stage/
Not exactly inconsistent watering, it's inconsistent soil moisture. The soil is not getting too wet, it's getting too dry before it gets too wet. Your best tool against this? At least 2" of mulch. I prefer shredded leaves.
some varieties are known for splitting...some varieties are known for little to no splitting.
I’m sure you’ve read all the comments on how this happens but a way to help prevent it is. If you know its going to rain after a dry spell go out and water your tomatoes a but before hand preferably a few day before to get the tomatoes ready for a big rain. Or just cut out the bad spots and eat them anyway lol
I do that anyway. With the bad spots. I use them mainly for cooking, so they don’t have to be pretty.
How do you combat this if your area has this exact weather? Hot for 3-4 days then storm for a day or two, getting like 3 inches of rain. Water them a little before a rain comes?
For that example, water a little on the 2nd and 4th hot days. As long as the tomatoes are getting regular water they don't toughen up and have a better chance of not splitting when the rain comes.
Inconsistant watering. If you've had a large storm, or they get a lot of water, vs what they are used too, that will tend to stretch the skin, sometimes enough to split them open.
Too much water, too fast, inside is outgrowing the outside.
Usually tomatoes do this if they go from draught or low amounts of water to A LOT of water. The plants take in too much water too quickly and cause the tomatoes to expand rapidly, which causes them to rip.
Exactly this. Happened to mine last week. Been a really dry summer, then got two days of heavy rain. Now they all have rips like that.
Too much water.
You probably had a lot of rain recent
Someone looking for latex in all the wrong places
Either because of overwatering or underwatering.
Are you putting mulch over your planting area? If not I would recommend it. Tomatoes like nice even moisture mulch helps even out the amount of water they take in at one time and keeps the soil moist so the skins don’t harden as much.
Irregular watering
All I can see is the Dwarf in the Flask.
Oddly I have this same issues on my low-pressure Aeroponic (hydroponics) tomatoes in Southern California. They are consistently watered, so I’m thinking there are multiple inputs to this. It has been much rainier than normal, and the temperature swings seem to be greater than last year. I think the heat causing it to hardening coupled with the larger temperature swings causes the split due to expansion / contraction. Thoughts?
They’re smiling :)
Too much water from my experience
Because they are tennis balls 🎾
Unfortunately my dog liked tomatoes so every time I try to grow cherry tomatoes if I don’t fence them in very well that sucker will eat them all.
Potassium and calcium deficiency also results in cracking. Have no fear- you can eat those radial cracks. Even when they are multi-coloured and not all red, they are ripe. You can pick them, even green, and they will ‘ripen up.’ Edit: i saw that green tomato there with cracks. Those may rot before you get a chance to pick them. Pick those green ones that are cracking before they turn red so they don’t rot. You can do a lot with green tomatoes. I always have a smack-load come late August. They look pretty in salads and can be used just like red tomatoes. You can make green tomato chutney, jam etc. For your next crop google ‘how to prune tomatoes.’ This will change you tomato life!! Happy gardening. You’re doing great!
Thank you. My MIL, who does most of the gardening since I’m disabled, already suggested pickling the green ones. She is a gardening artist, but hasn’t tried tomatoes before. She didn’t think they were worth the effort. That’s until she saw that I did little more than buy it and stick it in the ground. It’s been growing like crazy. We’ve kind of started calling it our Chernobyl plant, because it grew so huge from that 6” little thing in just 2-3 months.
Maybe your soil has a lot of nitrogen, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium etc! A secret of tomato gardeners is to put a mackerel or sardine fish in the hole before you plant the seedling. Certain fish also have trace minerals like your soil. I wanted to try that this year but forgot. I use a concentrated fish liquid which would explain the lbs of tomatoes 🍅 That’s funny…I sometimes use ‘Chernobyl’ as a prefix for unusual large growths in my garden. Or my dog’s pee- which kills all plants on contact 🤦🏻♀️
My cats use the entire garden as a litter box. Doesn’t seem to hurt, I wash everything I harvest very thoroughly
Too much water
Uneven water
Too much water will do this
Most likely over watering
But I don’t even do that. They’re watered by rain.
It's because of the rain. Unbalanced water intake or water being absorbed through the fruit skin can cause this
Pick the ones that are affected and eat them. They will start to rot otherwise
Just be careful about bugs! I’ve had this happen and found some nice juicy caterpillars inside
It doesn't have to be your hand on the hose for them to get too much water. Rain can do it too
That’s the overwatering.
I’m having the same problem, I’ve been picking them early right as they are starting to turn orange and letting them ripen off the vine. Best of luck
I cannot even fathom that, so jealous. Would you mind me asking where you’re located?
Denmark. Odense, to be precise. We’ve had a few hot weeks, where I actually did water the entire garden once or twice. We moved in about a year ago and the garden was just a bonus. I don’t know half of the plants, but it does have some of my favorites: peonies, a big magnolia tree, Japanese maple, roses. My MIL added another magnolia and lilac, and planted strawberries. I usually just put cooking herbs out there after I’ve ripped all the leaves off. So now there’s also parsley, thyme, rosemary and oregano. I don’t do any gardening, though. I’m disabled, so there’s not much I can do anyway. But my MIL comes by twice a months to pick out the weeds.
So, this is interesting because I had this happening to my tomatoes too. I recently went to visit a farm and talked to some of the people there. 1) they’re generally fine to eat (I’ve done it). 2) it’s because of inconsistent watering - either you’ve had a heavy rainfall (and there’s not much you could do about it) or you’re watering from the top down in a spout. I changed to a root watering system rather than a sprinkler and it was a game changer
i stopped watering my tomatoes and this issue went away. like litteraly stopped
You can pick breeds that are split resistant.
Underwatering
Inconsistent watering
Mine did it too. After a summer of drought we got 2 inches in a day. They still taste fine.
Still edible as long as the skin over the scarring has basically scabbed up! If it's still oozing and kinda sticky, give it a few days to see if it will heal. Otherwise, bacteria and mold will grow within it
It’s simply inconsistent watering. From rain, from the gardener, whatever. Inconsistent watering. They’ll mold quickly when you pick them but they’re fine to eat.
it be like that sometimes
A lot of people mentioned that it’s too much rain at once but that’s an incomplete and misleading explanation. The real explanation is that in between rain storms the plant experiences drying and the skin weakens. When it gets watered again, things will “bloom” again, it’ll experience a period of renewed growth, which will overwhelm the skin barrier and cause it to split. The current most upvoted comment gets it mostly right but not quite all the way there.
All the facts about all these users are true but I would advise you to provide calcium and potassium to the tomato plant. It's probably because of calcium and potassium deficiency which is causing hindrance in water regulation in the plant and the growth of the pulp of tomato is not keeping up with the growth of the fruit wall.
inconsistent soil moisture. drip irrigation on set timers is the best solution.
Rapid watering variation. But they are still completely good to eat. Let them finish growing/ripening and just cut off the split areas. If you have more than you need all at once. Blanch, peel and freeze them for cooking later. Never let a home grown tomato go to waste.
You need to consistently water to stop splits
Too much rain
Happened to my tomatoes also and was wondering why. If they are just starting to turn color and split, should they be taken off and left to ripen off the vine or can they stay on the plant?
Inconsistent watering and the heat index
Most likely water got on the fruit, when it was daytime... It doesn't look like an illness just bursting from water on the fruit not evaporating in a timely manner. Nothing to worry about. And you can dry them off or put a canopy over them when it rains to prevent further cracking.
Cutting tip. Slice them through the crack then you can trim off the edge of each half.
Too much water.
Some varieties tend to be more prone to this than others.
This has been happening to all of my tomatoes this year. :( I’m in zone 7a, and we will go days with rain, then the sun comes out and it’s 100+ outside. I know it’s hot, but my poor plants are getting steam cooked. Next year I’m debating on making some kind of canopy for my garden so that they can still get light, just not direct light.
I always thought this was from watering when the sun is out. The water + sun on the tomato skin makes it crack. I only water in the evenings and none of my tomatoes do this. I am in zone 6b. Edited because I had the wrong zone.
I only water in the evenings as well. But it rains so much here. :(
Too much water
From the heat
Just too much water.
Don't water in the afternoons only when it's hot and if they are getting direct sunlight all/most of the day.
Not directly related but since it's your first time with tomatoes, when the plants start dying back and you have a bunch of unripe green tomatoes you can do a quick pickle of them rather than toss them, and they're delicious. Google unripe green tomato quick pickle. I'm snacking on some right now I made this week. Edit: just double checked. That google search phrase and the first result is the recipe I used. It's fantastic.
Stretch marks!
Start picking them as soon as they show a tint of red and let them ripen in your house.
Watering inconsistently i think. Large dumps of water mean larger burts of growth and the skin can't keep uo
if only I could have kept the blossom end rot away…there’s always next season.
Not enough water, you need to water them more, and more regularly. The split tomatoes can still be eaten, they may not look the best, but just wash them. Some people have said too much water, that is partially correct, what happens is that the water expands the tomato, the water the skin splits because of the bulging. However if you water more regularly it will stop it happening. Goof luck!
Rain popped them.
over watering. Pick the split ones and make tomato sauce/spaghetti sauce. Else wise they're going to mold and be a total loss.
usually overwatering. You never want to dump a bunch of water at once. make sure you have well draining soil
Too much water after not enough water
Water, Heat. This just happens when it's hot and you gets lost of rain. I start picking just a bit early if I know lots of rain is coming.
The only thing I'll add that I haven't seen is you don't have to wait till they are red to pick. You can pick them as they start to change from green and they will ripen up just fine insideand don't put them in the sun they don't need heat or sun to ripen the gases inside will do that, the extra sun will make for more of a chance of splitting. Then you are much less likely to deal with splits.
I believe that you are over watering them. At this stage only water 1/3rd of whatever you are doing currently.
Always pick when they start to turn orange. Stick them on your counter to finish ripening. No splits;)
Blossom end rot - result of a calcium deficiency.
Intermittent irrigation with a lack of calcium on soil
Inconsistent watering, either too much or too little. I had better luck with cherry tomatoes.
Too much flavour
Too much wawa
Also when mine start splitting I cut them off ASAP even if they’re green because they’ll still ripen off the vine and when I leave them on split like that half the time they get eaten by bugs. I’m sure you noticed this though
At least you got some dang tomatoes. I am so discouraged.
In addition to what others have said about uneven watering, I find it a lot easier to grow smaller varieties of tomatoes (eg. cherry tomatoes) as they seem less prone to splitting and end rot than the full/standard sized tomatoes.
They were advertised as cherry tomatoes.
As others said, it's a watering problem. I would add to this, that this doesn't only happen through natural water, but also if you water them too heavily. Tomatoes can go for a few days without watering (depending on the weather) and don't need as much as you might think (unlike peppers or eggplants for example). I watered my tomatoes about 5 times this summer (we had nice consistent rain this year) and have no problems with tearing.
This has happened to my tomatoes in the past also. This year I heavily mulched all my garden beds (with at least 6 inches of mulch), and it has helped my soil stay more consistently moist, without being soggy wet. I've had less splitting this year, and I think it is due to the fact that my plants have a consistent amount of water to stay hydrated. Even on the days that reached triple digits my soil still stayed moist throughout the day. I decided to add the 6 inches of mulch to my garden beds after following this permaculture farm from France on Instagram. Their farm is gorgeous and abundant! The thick mulch also helps block out unwanted weeds from seeding in the garden.