Episode
Ep. 263 It's Not a Disease! Common Tomato Fruit Problems You Can't Spray Away | #GoodGrowing
- Podcast
- Good Growing
- Published
- Aug 28, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2504
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://share.transistor.fm/s/708a062c
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Summary
Tomatoes may be the most popular garden crop, but they can also be the most frustrating. If your tomatoes are cracking, developing black spots on the bottom, refusing to ripen, or showing strange yellow shoulders, you're not alone. In this episode, Chris and Ken dig into the most common tomato fruit disorders caused by weather, watering, heat, and nutrient imbalances. We also discuss late-season tomato care, including topping plants, ripening green tomatoes indoors, and cleaning up the garden to reduce problems next year. Skip to what you want to know: 00:42 Hey Ken! Where are we making our tomato problem observations this year? 04:09 Ken has tomato fruitworm (corn earworm), and he's proud of it. 05:33 What's a psychological disorder? 08:06 Tomato fruit cracking 11:45 Tomato yellow shoulder 13:27 White core of tomatoes 16:00 Blossom-end rot 21:00 Tomatoes are not ripening, or there are no tomatoes even though there are flowers 29:50 Late-season tomato maintenance 30:14 Topping tomatoes 33:22 Tomato plant full of green tomatoes with a frost imminent 35:17 Cleaning up the tomatoes from the garden at the end of the season Troubles with Tomatoes https://extension.illinois.edu/blogs/good-growing/2020-05-01-troubles-tomatoes Stalled Green Tomatoes: Why won’t they turn red? https://extension.illinois.edu/blogs/good-growing/2025-08-29-stalled-green-tomatoes-why-wont-they-turn-red Contact us! Chris Enroth: [email protected] Ken Johnson: [email protected] Emily Swihart: [email protected] Check out the Good Growing Blog: https://go.illinois.edu/goodgrowing Subscribe to the weekly Good Growing email: https://go.illinois.edu/goodgrowingsubscribe Any products or companies mentioned during the podcast are in no way a promotion or endorsement of these products or companies.…