My Square Foot Garden: Bonus Update, Blight!

I’d planned to wait until my my regular Thursday garden update to share what I’m doing. However, if it works to help save even a fraction of what’s out there, I would feel selfish because I hadn’t posted it sooner. It may not work at all but it may, too. It may well be it’s too little too late. I’d rather try and fail than not try and fail, anyway. And I can hope, can’t I? You may already know about it. If you don’t and you read this, you’ll learn something new.

The blight in my garden has been on my mind during the day and disturbed my sleep at night. I started Googling “organic fungicide” in earnest and finally came across something I could do that was readily accessible, cheap and fairly easy—all right at the top of my list of requirements. And here it is:

You’d better believe I felt strange with that bag of corn meal in my buggy. I had a hard time finding any that was just corn meal and not mix or self-rising. The additives in those would kill any plant.

The site I found said to mix one cup corn meal into one gallon water and let it set overnight. It also said you can use either food grade or horticultural corn meal but another site said to only use food grade.

After it has set, all the corn meal will have settled to the bottom of the bowl. By the way, I used rainwater and not tap.

The next day, it’s time to strain. I used a regular strainer with a strainer bag my friend Shari sent me. I didn’t put the corn meal mixture through the bag but simply laid it in the strainer.

The sprayer I have is an El Cheapo but it does the job and I don’t need something fancy.

When you’ve finished straining the stuff and filling the sprayer, you will be left with wet sludgy corn meal in the bottom of the bowl

and strainer.

Here are my poor little cherry toms. Sad, aren’t they?

I waited until it warmed up before I started spraying. Yesterday and today have both been unseasonably cool.

I took the “sludge” and put it at the base of some of the worst plants:

Then I got ready to sift on some dry meal:

After I covered the ground under the tomato plants, it looked like it had snowed, though it was yellow snow. (EWWWWWwww!)

For the first time, I pulled the hose that my neighbor fixed for me over to the garden. I needed a hose end sprayer but I didn’t have one.

The droplets were rather large but I tried to keep the water directed onto the dirt and not the plants.

After watering it in well, all I could do was hope and pray that it will work somewhat, at least.

Some notes about the corn meal:

1. Don’t put it on young plants. Only use it on established plants because it can stunt young ones.
2. DO NOT use “corn gluten” as a fungicide. It can be used as a weed killer because it slows or stops germination.

Other than those two things, it is said to be safe and effective. As for the effective part, we shall see what we shall see and I will keep you updated.