Diatomaceous Earth (Found in Red Lake Earth Diatomaceous Earth [food grade])
Imagine you’re wandering around in search of food, and you come to a tree festooned with avocados, mangoes, fresh beans, chocolate cakes, and hot loaves of cheddar bread. In order to pluck from this tree of wild dreams, you must first cross a field littered with razor blades and broken glass.
Tempted?
Greedy bugs face the same scenario when faced with crossing a barrier of diatomaceous earth.
To the microscopic human eye, Diatomaceous earth (DE), seems quite benign. DE are the fossilized remains of one-celled plants called diatoms. Their original abode were in the oceans and lakes that once covered western sections of the US and other regions of the Earth. The fossils are mined from underwater beds and from ancient dried lake bottoms. Fresh diatoms are essentially
It’s initial discovery prompted both a questionable batter and explosive sequestering by the founder of the Nobel Prize. In the mid 1800’s, a peasant and goods waggoner, Peter Kasten discovered DE in a well in north Germany. Limestone was the initial assumption, which prompted its use in fertilizer. The next grand idea came to make pancakes with it thanks to its resemblance to cornmeal. Peacenik Alfred Nobel then used it to manufacture dynamite.
DE finally found its first true calling when engineer, Wilhelm Berkefeld, used it successfully for filtration.
Since then, DE’s usefulness in pool filtration is well known. However, it should not be mistaken with food grade DE, which besides its use as an insecticide , can also be administered to pets for flea control, and humans even use it for intestinal (fortitude) cleaning and bad cholesterol eradication. Never use pool filter grade for self or pet ingestion as it is quite poisonous.
The effect on crawling insects (although the noble earthworm remains free of its razor grip) could be viewed as savage; although the avid grower seems to have no qualms with its insect dismantling. Specific bugs crawl over the diatoms and quickly discover the piercing of their exoskeleton. Slowly, the insect dehydrates and dies.
Gardeners and farmers then rejoice.
The list of insects that DE shreds are immense: Ants, aphids, bedbugs, cockroaches, coddling moth, earwigs, fleas, flea beetles, fungus gnats, mites, pillbugs, sawfly,silverfish, slugs, thrip, and ticks all get to see the inside of their makeup after crawling over a field of Diatomaceous Earth.
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