Why Does My Tomato Look Wonky?

It could be ‘cat-facing’

Julia Miller
Heated
Published in
4 min readAug 12, 2020

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I learned a new garden term this year: “cat-facing” tomatoes.

Before this, I considered deformed tomatoes as just that: a bit wonky on the end with rough scarred places. I did not give any thought to why this happens or how it affects the quality of the fruit. But once I become interested in a concept, I have to delve into exactly what it means.

In this article, I refer to the blossom end of a tomato. For those who are unfamiliar with the growing habits of tomatoes, the “blossom end” of a tomato is the bottom: the opposite of the stem, where tomatoes have a small mark on the bottom indicating where the bloom originated.

First, a description of cat-facing

Cat-facing is when the blossom end of the tomato is deformed in a particular way. This malformation is distinctly different from blossom-end rot. Blossom-end rot is when the bottom end of a tomato becomes indented, dark, and rotten, caused by a calcium deficiency.

Cat-facing has not been researched quite as much as other tomato deficiencies, although most experts agree the problem appears to be caused by incomplete pollination. When a tomato is not thoroughly pollinated, the fruit will not develop completely.

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Julia Miller
Heated
Writer for

Weaving a tapestry of life writing about food, family, and felines. Get a free recipe ebook at https://www.juliamillerauthor.com/quick-and-easy-pasta-dishes