I've been growing organically for over 25 years now, and my personal favorite fertilizers are OLD horse and/or cow manure. I'm lucky since I grow for market and plant anywhere from 250-300 tomatoes and have neighbors who raise both horses and cows. Something to remember about animal fertilzers is that they typically only release anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 their nutruients in a year. That's good if you know about it. It does mean that you need to add a lot, relatively speaking, to get enough nutrients out of them in a given year. I plant in 100 foot rows and every three years I dump about 6 inches of manure, plus calcitic lime which is around 85% lime vs. dolomitic lime which is only around 65% on each row. The rest of the lime mixture consists of magnesium which is usually present in plentiful quantities EXCEPT in heavy clay. I grow in a mix of sand and clay, at the bottom of a hollow that only gets around 8 hours of sun, and I do ok. If I was planting just a few plants, I'd dump at least 4 good sized shovels of real manure, not that bagged crap(pun intended). Doesn't hurt to add about 1/4 cup of epsom salts and possibly some black phosphate rock dust into the mix. Bottom rot is caused by a lack of calcium. Even if you've added sufficient lime, unless the lime is in contact with the feeder roots and is dissolved,the plant can't take it up. Sufficient watering is required to keep the lime in a molecular state. A quick cure for that, if you notice it on your first small tomatoes is to spray them with non-fat dried milk(mixed according to directions for drinking). Works. You can also dump a couple of quarts of NFDM around the plant at blossom time, and that also helps. But regular watering is still a requirement....mulch heavily if you can. By the way, most of the stuff you put in for fertilizer, especially natural fertilizers vs. the chemical poisons(so sue me) which are water soluable, are not usable by the plant. What needs to happen is that the microbes in the soil(if the soil is healthy and has a lot of microbial life) ingest the natural substances, break them down to the molecular level, and then die and also dissolve. The tiny feeder roots of most plants then take up this substance for nutrition. You can add manure until bessie come home, but if your soil is barren, not much will happen, at least at first. Gradually, there will be a breakdown, since most of these substances already have some bacteria in them...and eventually(might take a while) the soil LIFE will improve. Dirt is just that.......dirt. Soil is a living thing. Cracking is caused usually by uneven watering, i.e. the plant suddenly receives a lot of water just as the fruit is about ripe, and the resulting överdose"causes the fruit skin to crack....... HOWEVER certain varieties, mainly some of the old heirloom varieties, just crack. Not much you can do about it, just enjoy them quick like. Sun scald is caused by insufficient leaf protection not shading the fruit. This can be caused by either weak plants which aren't producing their usual amount of protective foliage, because of insufficient nutrition, overcrowding, disease etc, or simply trying to grow a tomato suitable for the north down south, southwest etc. Lots of these seed catalogs don't tell you what tomato is suitable to grow where. Usually the best seed houses are those that are located in your growing area. I have a major problem with early blight, which occurs both early and late here. Ths year I found that spacing my tomatoes much further apart(4' vs2.5-3') did a lot to alleviate that problem. In fact I had tomatoes until ''way late in the season when other growers were about done due to blight and other late diseases. Most healthy plants can combat a lot of disease and still produce fruit, a lot of fruit. Proper nutrition, regular watering, and using the proper plants is more productive than having to combat a lot of disease with expensive, and often dangerous, sprays. Enough. Sorry if I got carried away. Didn't even realize this forum existed here, and I've been moderatin' another forum for GB for a few years now.