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[SG] Diatomaceous Earth

A friend of mine performed an experiment in which she treated half of a
hosta bed with DE and left the other half alone. She alternated, putting
DE under one hosta, ignoring the next, DE under the next, etc. Her
conclusion was that at the end of the season the hostas with DE had
exactly the same amount of slug damage as the hostas without--ergo, DE is
ineffective.

She felt that of everything she tried, Deadline was the best slug killer.
I bought some, but have been afraid to use it--it's pretty potent, I fear.
Does anybody know how deadly Deadline is? I wouldn't want to kill any
other wildlife, except for slugs.

Another friend is having very good luck with the old beer in plastic
containers trick. She finds lots of drowned slugs ranging from tiny to
quite large in the a.m. in those little containers. I have also heard that
plain old yeast (you could use yeast that had expired for this purpose) in
water will do the same thing--attract slugs and they drown.

As for myself, I try to attract as many birds as possible to my yard and
hope that some of them eat my slugs. I have heard that wrens, for example,
will eat slugs, but have never seen one do it.

Bobbi Diehl
Bloomington, IN
zone 5/6

On Tue, 9 Jun 1998, Preston Littleton wrote:

> DE is the skeletal remains of single cell water plants. It punctures, is
> absorbed by and/or is abrasive to many insects. DE supposedly does no harm
> to earthworms. It can be bought in garden supply stores, at some nurseries
> or by mail order from many seed companies.
> Preston Littleton
> Seaford DE
> zone 7
> -----Original Message-----
> From: venies.place <venies.place@MCI2000.COM>
> To: shadegardens@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU <shadegardens@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
> Date: Tuesday, June 09, 1998 6:19 PM
> Subject: Re: [SG] Japanese Painted Fern
>
>
> >Hey guys, what is Diatomaceous Earth?  Where do you buy it? And what is it
> >used for?
> >
> >Pottsey zone5
>
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