A few weeks ago I had a fungus gnat problem. I bought Diatomaceous Earth and sticky strips to cure the problem. Gnats are gone!! I applied the DE after watering, but did not remove it and watered on top of it. The next watering I noticed a cement layer of DE about an inch deep. This slowed the draining of my plants almost to a stop. drip..drip..drip. flushing a 3 gallons takes about 1.5-2 hours. What should I do to speed the draining process up? Is this going to effect my flush? Any advice I would greatly appreciate. Thanks to all I was told by a friend to poke holes (top to bottom) around the soil, and to scrap the top layer. Is this sound advice? sounds violent to me....
your right to start flushing them but you do need the water to flow for it to really do any good. poking the holes its not a bad just try not to harm the root system( just enough to get the water to flow) and if their is a layer of it sitting on the top soil it would be a good idea to remove it and not push it deep in to the soil with the water.
yeah the advice was to stick a bamboo stick from the top of the soil all the way to the bottom. (this pops roots all the way down) HORRIBLE!! The cement layer is an inch down the soil and only seen when pouring the water. You can touch and feel the layer of slime in the soil. This is horrible, denying a proper flush.....
If it were me, I wouldn't water for a while and let your soil dry out. You're going to create a different problem by over watering. The "cement"layer will prohibit oxygen from getting to your roots and cause root fungus issues. Let everything dry out for a few days and then manually remove the layer of DE from the top of your pot. When the soil dries and the pot lightens up, then begin to water again. chunk
chunkdaddyo i appreciate the wisdom. I should dig the inch down and remove? I wish I could take pics of this but am only able to see this layer immediately after the water hits(I will when removing). I let my plants get properly dry before water, this DE was referred to me and I want everyone to know it works great BUT REMOVE BEFORE WATER. any other advice I would greatly appreciate.
Just sounds like you used way too much DE. You are right, it works great for fungus gnats. There is a reason hydro stores dont carry it or they put it in a hard to find bottom shelf somewhere,...a $12 bag cures your shit and lasts for a long time. They would rather you spend big bucks on crap products that will just have you back in their store buying another $50 snake oil. I mix it with my soil as a preventative and layer it in at every transplant. You are trying to kill the larvae not the fly so its ok if its deep. For now just pick out what you can.
I've been having a problem with leaf miners. You think DE would work for that? I know the insect needs to come into contact with the DE to be killed by it but the leaf miners eventually drop into the soil when they are mature. I think my tomato plants are most affected by these sons of bitches and i would really like to get rid of them. I've been using a neem oil solution after removing any affected leaves and they still come back.