Diatomaceous Earth Usage?

[TexasTycoon]

Thanks for all the advice guys! Bill your method sounds like the way to go. If I don't use all of the mixture in one go, will it keep until the next time I need to apply or do I need to mix it up again? And I'm seconding Worth's stinkbug question because I hate those guys.

[heirloomtomaguy]

Originally Posted by Gerardo

Great you brought up the yellow traps, I forgot to mention those. I made some with mice glue traps and solo yellow cups, it's been working well.

Any word on the reflective mulch? They always say do not use in southern states, I bet it could help you guys up north. I like the fact that you deny them their favorite hiding spots.

No more Mr. Nice Guy, I'm going the Met52 route. Whiteflies and aphids are a constant threat down here, and I'm done dancing with them. Time for parasitization and death by fungus. Die vermin!

Gerardo i grow through white on black plastic mulch and i dont see any aphids until the plants get so huge they cover the plastic mulch. The white works the same way as reflective but less blinding and better in our climate. It has been one of my most effective controls of aphids for the last couple years. Plus the white mulch blocks weeds and helps keep the roots cooler in the summer months. Win win win if you ask me

[Gerardo]

Win win indeed. I'm gonna look into it. Thank you!

[creister]

Bill,

How much Permethrin/gallon did you use? I wonder if it would still be effective without the permethrin?

Curt

[KarenO]

DE will also kill all beneficial insects including bees and other pollinators, butterfly caterpillars, beetles, everything. Keep in mind before indiscriminate use.
I has it's uses I suppose but I have been gardening for 30 years without it and intend to continue without it.
Traps work best for slugs. beer or grapefruit rinds.
KO
Karen O

[efisakov]

I dust DE around my plants to deter slugs and ants (too many is too many). Works great. After big rain I reapply.
Spraying is best at the most humid times and the times of infestation. I agree with Bill, mixing DE with soap works great.

BTW there are some ants that are NOT that great in your garden:
"Some species of ants farm aphids, protecting them on the plants they eat, eating the honeydew the aphids release from the terminations of their alimentary canals. This is a mutualistic relationship. These dairying ants milk the aphids by stroking them with their antennae.[Note 1][22]
Some farming ant species gather and store the aphid eggs in their nests over the winter. In the spring, the ants carry the newly hatched aphids back to the plants."

I look at ants now differently. The once mentioned above were in my garden. I have witness exactly what they are talking about. Took pictures as well.

[Worth1]

My board snail traps have been working great.
I think my problem last year was leaf mulch they were living in it.
I will give up my tomatoes to not kill off my beloved spiders.

Worth

[TexasTycoon]

I had those farming ants when we had bad aphids, too, Ella.

And no, I don't want to kill any beneficials, but we really don't have any. The only ladybugs we had last year were ones we put there and they quickly left, and I saw one praying mantis and one bee. Maybe I'll hold off on spraying with DE in favor of dusting around the base unless I have an infestation to deal with.

Sometimes I really wish we'd gone with a second or third floor apartment instead of ground floor, I bet we'd have way less critters to deal with.

[ilex]

Anybody has used it to control thrips and TSWV, and rust mites?

Tomatoes are the only thing that gets sprayed in my garden (and this year leeks with neem). I only bt and neem with soap and essential oils. I tried sulfur but didn't like it. Tutta absoluta is a problem that can't be tolerated in de colgar tomatoes. Thrips and rust mites are also serious.

[maxjohnson]

I have problem with farming ants in my garden because the house we bought have stone pavements as half of the backyard, and the ants like burrowing in the cracks. Ants are the worst pests in the garden for me since they kill off all the good bugs like baby praying mantis and lady bugs and they attract the bad ones. I definitely use diatomaceous earth to deter them by sprinkling over where ever their nests and trails are. Also sprinkle it around and under my containers. I make sure my potting mix have good water retention and doesn't get dry out since they like to make nest in dry potting mixes. I stopped using DE on plant leaves however since it harm the bees and butterflies.

Since I started mulching all the soil surface in my garden, it seems help deter the ants a bit, and a lot other pests, so I use less and less spraying. I do spray to prevent the ants from farming on the mango leaves. The spray I use is karanja oil + neem oil + dr. bronner, and it seems to be very effective in killing ants. I can see their preserved corpses still stuck to the plant weeks later. But this is why I'm weary of using it since it will harm beneficial bugs as well.

I have boric acid powder, but been lazy make sugar mix trap out of it, but it is quite effective for indoor.

[efisakov]

Originally Posted by ilex

Anybody has used it to control thrips and TSWV, and rust mites?

Tomatoes are the only thing that gets sprayed in my garden (and this year leeks with neem). I only bt and neem with soap and essential oils. I tried sulfur but didn't like it. Tutta absoluta is a problem that can't be tolerated in de colgar tomatoes. Thrips and rust mites are also serious.

I had infestation of spider mites. They kill all plants within few weeks. DE spray worked on them. It took sometime for plants to revive but they did.

[4season]

I had spider mites on my tomatoes last year too. The plants were looking to be the best ever until the mites. They didn't do well even after the mites were under control.

[b54red]

I don't know if the DE would keep the stinkbugs away without the Permethrin but I know the Permethrin does the job on the large ones that I'm not sure the DE would take care of and it knocks out the adults of both spider mites and aphids. I think what the DE does is it kills off the juveniles which always pop up a day or so after the Permethin has done it's work. The trouble with Permethin is that it has little if any residual effect on most insects but the DE works til it is washed off. I have found that the Permethin is better for this if used in concentrations stronger than recommended following some reading about keeping stinkbugs under control. Remember this is the poison they use in dog shampoo and in spot treatment for fleas and they use a pretty high concentration for that. I never spray or dust with any pesticide until very late in the day and I have only rarely used anything stronger than Permethrin in years. The DE has been a wonderful find for me and hope it will continue to work as well as it did last year. I had a bad infestation of both leaf footed bugs and stinkbugs and it got rid of them and I never had spider mites last year which was a real nice bonus.

I used about 3/4 cup DE to a gallon of water and mixed it first in a separate container before straining into my sprayer. I also used a fairly strong soap mix using about 2 Tbls of Dawn to a gallon of water. I then added a little Permethin to the mix and sprayed all parts of the plant.

I didn't see many beneficials or pests after using this mix for weeks and when the leaf footed bugs showed up again I repeated the process. I do wait til the ladybugs leave the garden which usually happens about two weeks after the hot weather gets here. I don't know why they leave when there are usually so many uneaten aphids out there on my tomatoes and peppers but they do and when they do leave the aphids will quickly overwhelm my peppers and sometimes my tomatoes unless I get a bunch of Assassin bugs like I did three years ago. Two years ago was the worst aphid infestation I have ever had and it forced me to spray my peppers every week for almost two months with soapy water and Permethrin just to keep my plants new growth alive; but with the addition of the DE to the mix I only needed to spray twice all last summer. I hope it will be that easy this year.

Bill

[Starlight]

Does DE work in the soil of containers? I was wondering if it would be beneficial to mix a little in the soil of my containers. I have to many beneficials that hang around, so I don't want to do leaves of anything, but I wondered if it would work on them pesky fungus gnat larvae in the soil of the seedlings.

[heirloomtomaguy]

If DE is wet it does not work. I think the constant moisture of the soil would render it useless for bugs. If you had a layer on top of the soil and were bottom watering it may work.