Yes. It's a salt, so the more there is in the soil solution, the harder it is for the plant to take up water. If there's much too much, it literally pulls water from plant cells by exactly the same mechanism curing salts pull water from meat cells (bacon, ham, etc). You should never dose with Epsom salts unless you have a very good reason to believe the only thing wrong with your plants, nutritionally, is a magnesium deficiency. In nearly 100% of all cases for plants in containers, it would be better to simply flush the soil and fertilize with an appropriate fertilizer containing magnesium and all other essential nutrients. Overdosing with Epsom salts because it has the potential to make your plants greener is very poor practice, and FAR more likely to be limiting than helpful. Hi, Linda! If you're still active of the forums. It's been a while since your name's popped up. I hope you're faring well. Al

My neighborhood has sandy silt loam soils with near neutral pH around 6.8. I see symptoms of Mg deficiency on some weeds by the roadside. When starting my garden long ago, I added a lot of peat and dolomite limestone. The resulting pH was 6.5, and the dolomite provided a long-lasting source of Mg. Over time, as the original OM decayed, the pH rose to 6.8 and occasional iron deficiency symptoms appeared. Perhaps the Mg I added has been used up over the years. I don't want to add more dolomite because it would make the pH too high. It seems there is a simple, natural shortage of Mg in the local soil, and probably in my leaf compost as well. Routine application of epsom salt seems like the appropriate treatment. I would not recommend using epsom salt unless there is a known deficiency of magnesium. I had my amended soil tested long ago, and everything was fine at that time. It does have a low CEC (nutrient retention) caused by the low proportion of clay. Lately I have been adding clay (plain kitty litter) when replanting. I wish I had known to do that sooner.

digdirt I think gardening should be fun, too, but people gradually come to understand more and more about what they're doing. There's different kinds of folks, and that's good. I have an analytical mind, so to speak, want to know not just that something's happening but WHY it's happening. That's fun to me! And I'm not alone. As far as BER goes, for three years I had it on every single Park's Whopper Tomato I grew. It didn't appear on any of the other varieties I grew those same years. That's when I finally began to wonder if it was the "fault" of different varieties of tomatoes and other veggies that get it under some conditions (did you know that WATERMELONS can develop BER?) and not mine! I'd done everything recommended -- prepared the soil with lime/calcium ahead of time, watered regularly, fertilized just right, waited the season out, ad nauseum. I had to discard at least 80%-90% of those Whopper tomatoes each year. Finally, I stopped growing them and started looking for varieties that didn't develop BER. That's the point -- there are varieties that don't get it, at least not to the extent of no crop produced, and in some cases, perhaps admittedly rare, maybe you can do something about BER and lessen its impact. So, it's a balance between laissez-faire, letting things take their course, and figuring out what's wrong when you put a lot of energy and planning into making your garden grow. I've been gardening for a LONG time, too, and none of the varieties I've grown developed BER except sporadically until I began gardening here in Georgia. It was bad for every gardener I spoke with last summer, all of them trying to buy calcium sprays in the garden centers! The weather must have been part of the problem since everybody has a different system for growing tomatoes. But it was the third year for me with those Whoppers and I'd had enough. And I agree -- there may be newbies for whom gardening is overwhelming, but I think people absorb what they're interested in or need to know at the moment. What that is depends on their prior experience and knowledge. The GardenWeb search function is of great value -- when you're ready with a new question, it's probably already been answered somewhere here.

When I mix macro nutrients together I use Calcium Nitrate, Potassium Nitrate and they are put in solution alone. Then I add Sulfate of Potash, Monopotassium phosphate, and Magnesium Sulfate (Epsom salts) which is separately dissolved as the sulfate fraction. For vegetative nutrient use 6 grams per gallon of Calcium nitrate and 2.4 grams per gallon of epsom salts. This will still leave you deficient of a "complete nutrient" as there is no potassium or phosphate in the blend. You will have to count on your Flora products to give you the balance. I usually mix up a concentrate so 25 ml of my concentrate is added per gallon in my systems. By dissolving the salt into a concentrate it quickly disperses into the working solution and does not drop out.