Hi Mrs. Hunter, there are a few of my tomato plants that have what I believe to be early blight on their bottom leaves too. These are right next to otherwise healthy blight free plants. With all the corn meal waste at my work place I'll give your method a shot, nothing to lose. If I understand you correctly it's just some corn meal fermented for a few days in a bucket of water then diluted to use as a watering tea on the soil? or as foliar spray on the plant? Thanks, vgkg
PS, hope your grasshoppers are gone for you now.

Yeah- I use the tea as a drench around the base of the plants. I just figured that if cornmeal promotes organisms that will fight fungi, that brewing up some tea would get the microbes going in a hurry. I needed a quick fix to try to save the Brandywines. It's the first year I have grown them, and they are huge- supposed to be very tasty too, which is what I was going after. I even went and bought some Daconil, but just couldn't bring myself to use it. Does this mean I am officially an organic head? As for the hoppers, the Nolo was very effective where I used it when they were babies. Very few grasshoppers near the garden, but I have been hand-picking a few here and there and get great pleasure from squashing them. hehehe There are still plenty out in the wildflower (aka weed) field, but it seems they tend to stay in close proximity to where they hatched. -Mrs Hunter

Thanks Mrs. Hunter, I'll whip up a batch of corn meal tea this weekend and give it a shot. I confess to having applied daconil once already due to about 6 plants lower leaves turning yellow and appearing to be working their way upward. I don't like it either so only sprayed the effected leaves and not the rest of the plant/fruits. If your cornmeal idea works then I may try it on my squash & pumpkin leaves (as a foliar spray) later on for powdery mildew. vgkg

Hi,
I'm interested in trying this.
Do you think it will also work for late blight?
anyway, I can try it.

My question - do you use the corn meal that can be bought at a supermarket, or is it some other kind of cornmeal?

thanks,
ellen

Ellen, always use cornmeal purchased from the grocery store on edible plants because it has been tested for aflatoxins which are harmful to humans. I strongly urge those who discover Late Blight on their tomatoes to pull the plants, bag them and get them off their property PDQ. This is a serious fungus which I doubt can be controlled by cornmeal.

A week ago, prior to leaving for a vacation, I noticed some suspicious rotting on a few tomatoes. It looked like the photos of blight published in the NY Times. As the problem was not widespread, I removed the problem fruit, sprinkled cornmeal(straight, not tea form) liberally around the base and leaves, and left on my trip. Cornmeal has helped to prevent or slow hollyhock rust, so I figured it was worth a shot. To my happy surprise, everything looked great when I came home. A few caveats: I have only gardened for a few years, these tomatoes are raised from organic heirloom seed and I have not experienced blight before, so it is fully possible that the bad tomatoes had bottom rot. However, as they resembled the images of blight and many of my neighbors have big box tomatoes, I thought it would be worth sharing this experience.

mrs. hunter - how did you actually make the cornmeal tea? do you just mix it with water? i have never made compost tea, so i don't know if there is a special method. but i really want to treat this early blight before it affects my fruit!

MAKE A SPRAY FOR PLANTS TO TEMPORARILY CHANGE THE PH OF PLANT LEAVES....A TABLESPOON OF BAKING SODA IN A QT OF WATER WILL RAISE PH...WHICH BLIGHT CANNOT LIVE IN...MAY WANT TO SPRAY 2 OR 3 TIMES....IT WORKED FOR ME KILLING THE BLIGHT....BAKING SODA HAS PH OVER 8....ROY

Lot of ways to fight early blight on tomatoes....cornmeal, need to use whole ground cornmeal, like hodges or red mill....i want to know why not use wind power to keep blight away.....dries out leaves etc after rain, keeps air circulating...perhaps small solar fans would work? Has anyone tried this way??? To date the best way for me to fight blight is spraying manure tea (with molasses and i added kelp spray)...turned diseased leaves brown and they fell off or i picked them off...search net to find out about manure tea....let me know if you have tried fans...the indian