Cracked?

Cracked?  Well, I could be referring to myself, oh so close to the edge on oh so many occasions...but in this instance it is the tomatoes in my garden to which I allude.

Have any like this on your vines???  Quite a number of mine have this circular scarring, although the incredibly sweet cherry tomatoes tend to have more of a vertical crack from stem to base.




It was my brother-in-law who, last Friday evening after he introduced our kids to "rotten tomato fights", tried to explain the connection of cracked tomatoes to excessive rain.  Fortunately I didn't try to make a grab for what I thought were red balls zooming across the lawn and towards our heads. 

So why the cracked tomatoes?  Because of my Lilliputian comprehension of agriculture (and my lack of memory as to how he described it) I will quote http://www.agrisupportonline.com/Articles/cracking_in_tomatoes.htm

"Rain and irrigation. Rain and excess irrigation will often cause cracking and if the fruit lacks leaf cover then the effect is even more dramatic. Tomato crops that do not receive water at regular intervals but rather receive it periodically at large intervals are likely to have cracking. This problem is related to the Conductivity Factor (CF) of the soil solution".

Speaking of cracked....or crackled... the sure-to-win-most-annoying-buzzer-ever has just horn/honked to let me know it is time to exit chocolate chip banana bread, with its perfectly crackled crests, from the oven.  Mmmm, with that aroma of my husband's great aunt's recipe, will any be left for tomorrow's snack?