Re: Diatomaceous Earth (DE)

countrynaturals 7/16/2019, 12:57 pm

My problem is slugs and rollie pollies eating everything I plant from seed in the Salad Bar. Right now, I want to plant carrots and Daikon radishes. Could I plant the seeds, then sprinkle DE around until they sprout and get too big for the beasties, then discontinue? Is there a better solution?

OhioGardener 7/16/2019, 1:48 pm

If you apply enough DE so that the Sow Bugs & Slugs have to crawl over it to get to the seedlings, it will save your plants. But, if you just lightly sprinkle it, and only right around the seedlings, they will probably destroy the plants before the DE affects them.

countrynaturals 7/16/2019, 2:06 pm

OhioGardener wrote:If you apply enough DE so that the Sow Bugs & Slugs have to crawl over it to get to the seedlings, it will save your plants. But, if you just lightly sprinkle it, and only right around the seedlings, they will probably destroy the plants before the DE affects them.

Would I be better off saturating the surface with Safer's 3 in 1 before I plant the seeds? I hate chemicals but I want carrots and Daikons and I've been losing this battle for 3 years now. There has to be a way! diatomaceous - Diatomaceous Earth (DE) - Page 3 950477

diatomaceous - Diatomaceous Earth (DE) - Page 3 950477

OhioGardener 7/16/2019, 2:45 pm

countrynaturals wrote:
OhioGardener wrote:If you apply enough DE so that the Sow Bugs & Slugs have to crawl over it to get to the seedlings, it will save your plants. But, if you just lightly sprinkle it, and only right around the seedlings, they will probably destroy the plants before the DE affects them.
Would I be better off saturating the surface with Safer's 3 in 1 before I plant the seeds? I hate chemicals but I want carrots and Daikons and I've been losing this battle for 3 years now.

Don't know if that would do anything or not - I don't use chemical pesticides or fungicides, so don't have that experience. In my garden, I would set traps for the slugs or sow bugs to kill them before they find the plants. Slugs love beer, so I share some of mine with them in a saucer at ground level and they drown in it. I recently discovered another post on this forum about drowning sow bugs, which I tried and it worked like a charm. Check out this thread on Sow Bugs:

Sowbug - do you have problems?

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