Get more tomatoes with Epsom Salts
Epsom Salts May help increase blossoms in tomatoes and pepper plants. Increase in blossoms means more tomatoes and peppers!
Epsom salts contain magnesium sulfate, two important elements for plant growth.
Magnesium– can become depleted in soil usually later in the season. Magnesium helps strengthen plant cell walls, helping the plant to absorb nutrients. It also helps to increase blossoms.
Sulfur– improves the growth and overall health of plants, it may also help our high alkaline soil here in the southwest.
There are two ways to use Epsom salts for tomatoes.
1. Mix 1 tbsp of Epsom salts into the soil at the bottom of the planting hole when transplanting tomatoes or peppers or mix 1 tbsp in a gallon of water and water the transplant. It may help plants absorb Calcium and other nutrients from the soil.
2. Use as a foliar spray of 1 tbsp per gallon of water when the plants flower. Epsom salt helps set more blossoms.
I’ve used Epsom Salts on my tomatoes, peppers and even roses for years. It will help roses produce more flowers. Scratch in 1/2 cup of Epsom salts in soil around rose bush and water in.
giantveggiegardener 
Jannine,
My roses are finally beginning to bloom and now I learn about Epsom salts to increase their flowering. Thanks for including this fact as it will certainly allow LInda and I to enjoy these beautiful plants more in the future.
Gene
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Hi Gene-
Don’t forget to look for aphids right now on the roses and if you find them spray a hard stream of water on them to try to knock off lots of them and then spray insecticidal soap on the leaves- top and bottom of leaves. It will kill them. You may have to do this a couple of times. We had a problem with our roses and now it seems under control…
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Thanks for the new information about epsom salts. Never heard of that before.
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Reblogged this on Home Grown New Mexico.
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Jannine-
I just discovered little black flies on my tomato plants- a lot of them. I hosed them off, but they’ve been coming back. Are these a problem? If so, is there anything else I can do to get rid of them?
Pam
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Are they damaging the tomato plants? Any holes, dried spots on leaves. Could be black aphids which suck the juice out of the leaves or it could be beneficial wasps which are feeding on bad bugs. Let me know what you find..
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Some of the leaves have brown, rust spots on them and the lower leaves have some holes. Some of the flowers have fallen off. Some of the leaves are starting to look yellowish.
Pam
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Check these out:
Check these out-does it look like either?
http://www.waldeneffect.org/blog/Bad_Bug_Profile:_Flea_Beetles/
http://www.maricopachat.com/FORUM/tabid/60/view/topic/postid/219435/Default.aspx
Without seeing a photo of the bugs, it’s hard to guess what they may be. Might try an insecticide like Neem or even stronger like a Pyrethrin. Be sure to spray either very late or early in the day as both of these will harm bees if you get a direct hit on them..
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Check these out:
Check these out-does it look like either?
http://www.waldeneffect.org/blog/Bad_Bug_Profile:_Flea_Beetles/
http://www.maricopachat.com/FORUM/tabid/60/view/topic/postid/219435/Default.aspx
Without seeing a photo of the bugs, it’s hard to guess what they may be. Might try an insecticide like Neem or even stronger like a Pyrethrin. Be sure to spray either very late or early in the day as both of these will harm bees if you get a direct hit on them..
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Thanks, I’ll try the neem. They don’t look like the beetles, closer to the flies.
Pam
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