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Diatomaceous Earth (DE) is made from the fossilized remains of tiny, aquatic organisms called diatoms. Their skeletons are made of a natural substance called silica—which makes up 26% of the Earth’s crust by weight.
It is often recommended to gardeners to sprinkle DE around their plants to deter pests. Diatomaceous earth as an insecticide that is not poisonous.
Because the silica skeletons are very sharp—like tiny pieces of broken glass. When slugs or snails crawl over DE, the results are cuts and abrasions to their soft bodies, loss of fluid and eventual dehydration. This process works on other soft bodied insects, too, including caterpillars and aphids, and on those with hard shells, insects such as beetles, fleas, cockroaches, and even bed bugs.