Tomatoville® Gardening Forums - View Single Post - Diatomaceous Earth as a seed starting medium

travis · May 4, 2012

This is all very interesting.

First of all, originally I was only familiar with diatomaceous earth (DE) as a water filtering medium.

Secondly, I was under the impression that all DE was calcareous, fossilized, single cell skeletons of some ancient diatoms (hard shelled algae thingies).

I did not know they are siliceous. I was worried that using too much DE would raise the pH of my mix. So, I should be looking for what in particular info on the package to indicate pH below the 7.0 neutral point?

May 4, 2012	#18
travis Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Evansville, IN Posts: 2,984	This is all very interesting. First of all, originally I was only familiar with diatomaceous earth (DE) as a water filtering medium. Secondly, I was under the impression that all DE was calcareous, fossilized, single cell skeletons of some ancient diatoms (hard shelled algae thingies). I did not know they are siliceous. I was worried that using too much DE would raise the pH of my mix. So, I should be looking for what in particular info on the package to indicate pH below the 7.0 neutral point?