Rasta Roy
Well-Known Member
The food grade is not as bad for your lungs...but like @NaturalFarmer said...most people end up with the shit from home depot. I think the brand Lowe's carries is food grade...but I can't remember.Yeah I did want to try DE a while back too.
But just the fact that it can be dangerous to inhale makes it iffey to me.
I don't like the idea of the way it functions - it cuts up fungus gnat larva bodies that move over it?
So what about the soil mites and others who I WANT to have in there, will they get injured too?
Enough questions to make me drop diatomaceous earth before I even picked it up
In fact, I'm so sceptical that I would say what worked in your case was more likely the sticky paper + letting the topsoil dry out. Just think on it: your soil was dry, with the DE sprinkled on it.
Where do the fungus gnat larvae live? in the moist.
So pretty sure they weren't romping around on that dry soil, getting themselves breaded up with DE, which then killed them...Yeah it may have zapped some in the fly stage, as they landed to lay eggs...?
@calliandra I'm not positive but I'm pretty sure you're right that it cuts up and kills some of your beneficial soil bugs along with the gnats.
IMO it doesn't do that great of job killing gnats. As soon as you water its useless and if it only works when your soil is dry...and drying out your soil is how you get rid of gnats...seems like a pointless product for this issue.
I prefer rosemary oil based products but am currently trying mosquito dunks but like the de I fear it might kill more than I want but we will see.