Diatemaceous Earth

Sick Plants & Problems
#41

Yes I like putting color on tomato plants.

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#42

So far, no new damage that I can tell. Some things are beyond repair and have to be started over. There are a few fuckwigs in the traps I set, hopefully most of them are hiding and dying an excruciating death from the DE. Maybe a flour sifter would be a faster and easier idea for spreading that stuff.

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#43

Oh ya do you not like chems.

#44

Really trying to avoid it. I did some spinosad but I really prefer not to contaminate water or kill bees

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#45

I spent some time learning the wigs life cycle. Take a garden hose cut 3 foot strips. Lay lay in garden. Pick them up daily. Hope they make a house in the water hose. If they don’t we tried anyway lol

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#46

I spent some time trying to figure out how to penetrate the shell and learned something I can use. Wigs like Soy Sauce and 70 percent Alcohol with 30 percent water will penetrate and kill. Said Ethanol was better. I like this idea as a spray. Never spray under direct sun lite tho.

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#47

Yeah, I saw that one on farmers almanac after I poofed all that DE and set oil and soy sauce traps. What would the alcohol do to plants though? One would think it would dry them up.

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#48

Let’s back up on that alcohol spray. Let me test it on one of my plants first.

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#49

I spray something harsher to kill viruses and bacteria on heirloom plants. It’s gone in 3 minutes. So I think its alcohol will work.

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#50

I just wiped a leaf down with 100% rubbing alcohol. It’s in the dark. We will see what happens and what the leaf will tolerate day to day.

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#51

It will kill it, the first time I made moonshine, I chucked the head out on the grass in the yard, after a week I had a big bare patch. Now I keep the head and save it as a weed killer on my drive.

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#52

I saw no damage this morning.

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#53

I suspect it may be because Shadey’s moonshine must have a “slightly higher” :grin: concentration of alcohol … :sunglasses::cocktail:

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#54

I’ll break out my power sprayer soon. I spray once a week and after every rain anyway…

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#55

I’ve seen bugs crawling happily through DE. It sounds nice, a purely mechanical means of pest control, but in my experience, it doesn’t do much of anything. The only organic pest control products I’ve seen work are nicotine sprays and spinosad.

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#56

So far I have applied a triple whammy out there. A spinosad drench through the hose end sprayer, layed out 6 oil/soy sauce traps and covered it in DE. After 2 days, I see bugs in the traps, no new noticeable damage and less bugs in general. Went and bought a flour sifter for baking to apply more at a time and speed up the process. Decided to alternate watering days for the outside planters and the veggie patch, so I have less area to cover in DE at a time. I’ve been moving the container plants around too, so none of those fuckwigs can seek refuge under them.

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#57

It’s not instantaneous by any means but I promise you it works.

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#58

First planter watering since I threw down the DE. Gonna let them dry until close to sundown then reapply the DE. It’s like day 3 and no new damage seen. Yay!

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#59

My experience has been otherwise. It won’t kill eggs either. The original poster will be dealing with the problem all season. It’s the mildest “discouragement” to insects, if anything. If it takes weeks to have any effect, it doesn’t really work that well.

Pertaining to the original poster, Malathion works great for most things. It smells absolutely god-awful though, like a smoldering port-o-potty. I’d use Temprid SC. If you’d rather use organic methods, give nicotine sprays a try. Soak a bag of beech-nut in a gallon of warm water. Apply as a foliar/root drench. Earwigs won’t survive.

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#60

Hi there!

I had a thrip issue last year and had some DM in the cupboard. I even bought a few empty powder sprayer things to puff it on the leaves more directly. (not very efficiently though)

I’m not sure it’s supposed to be wet. I may be wrong, but it works by scraping the belly of the bugs as they travel over it. They then crawl off and die. Mildly sadistic unless you’re talking about something that is hurting our girls!!! I also used to pull the wings off of those huge horseflies that would take chunks out of my horses-don’t judge me :slight_smile:

Try sprinkle it daily wherever you think the bugs will travel. I don’t believe there’s much harm to the soil other than the gooeyness that someone else mentioned once it gets wet.

Good luck getting rid of those! I’m back up and growing again after a total clean down from thrips & a mite or two. Grow and learn!!! I will NEVER bring anything from outside into my garden again.

Being without the plants was hard on my mental health! We’re firing on all botanical cylinders now though!

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