Diatomaceous earth doesn't DETER them, it abrades the hard exoskeleton so the pest dehydrates rapidly and then dies. Get some DE if you want to spread anything on the soil surface. Really. Sand doesn't do a thing, and if it's not washed, can add salt to your soil.
stinkyattic Reviewed by stinkyattic on . Spider Mites or Amblyseius Fallacis? I wish I could post the pics from my microscope. I was checking the plants this morning and saw a bunch of fat little bugs (smaller that an average speck of sand) crawling around the soil. I took a teaspoon of sand, put it on a plate, isolated one of the buggers from the sand particles, put the plate in the toaster oven until it stopped crawling, then put him under the scope. What I found made me think spider mite. I threw some loose leaf tobacco on top of the soil (actually on top of the 1/2" Rating: 5