Ewe & Me

Just in case you haven’t been motivated enough to find a source for food grade diatomaceous earth in your area, I thought I’d share a few more uses for this naturally occuring product. DE is the fossilized remains of tiny hard-shelled algae. It puts the scratch in scouring powders. It is mined from the earth, and in its natural form is safe enough to eat. (Yuck!). It can be mixed with water and drank. I haven’t tried this, but people who do report shinier hair, clearer skin, harder, healthier nails, and improved overall health. DE contains 15 minerals. If you want more information about DE for human consumption, check out this website: Wolf Creek Ranch.

DE also kills fleas. Sprinkle it lightly on your dog’s coat and massage it in to the fur. Sprinkle it on the dog bed. Shake it in the dog kennel area, or in the yard where your dog spends most of his time. To make it easier to spread in the yard, you can mix it with plenty of water and put it in a garden sprayer. The DE won’t work until it dries out again, but it is a good way to get it distributed. You can sprinkle a little DE on your dog’s food along with some garlic powder to prevent fleas and internal parasites. Lightly shake it on the carpets to kill fleas in the house. Let it work into the carpet for a while, then vacuum up only what remains on the top. DE may clog your vacuum if you shake it too heavily, but so does chemical flea-killing powders. Ask me how I know?

DE kills potato bugs, slugs, and a host of garden pests. Generously spray your garden with DE and water in a garden sprayer. Be sure to get under the leaves as well. You can shake dry powder De on the surface of the soil near plants to kill off slugs as they draw near. It isn’t strong enough to harm garden mice. This is how I’ve always applied DE, but I see now that Wolf Creek (listed above) now markets a sprayer for the DE powder dry. Worth checking out! It would be a lot lighter. The wet DE gets very heavy.

DE kills algae. You can shake it in your livestock troughs. At first it will mix with the water to make it cloudy, but then it settles to the ground. I don’t know why it works, but the algae dies out and settles to the bottom of the tank as well. When you rinse out the water tank, add fresh DE.

Shake DE around the perimeter of the house to kill off ants or beetles that may want to come in. Shake it around the mouth of ant hills. Shake it over your cat’s pet food to prevent worms - but not if your cat is pregnant or may become pregnant. It may harm the unborn of small mammals. Feed DE to any pet or livestock, but keep it away from your compost worms.

Mix DE into your feed order, it will kill off bugs in your grain bin. It also adds minerals to your livestock’s diet - calcium, mostly.

You can use a little DE on a damp sponge for scrubbing stubborn stains and burned on crud off your dishes. DE can be used to polish metal.

Mix it in with potting soil for house plants. It holds water, yet does not clump up, allowing oxygen to travel freely in the soil.

Sprinkle DE around the barn or shed when you clean. Shake it on top of manure piles to kill off fly larvae. With diligence, you can nearly eliminate fleas, ticks, and flies from your property.