- From the salty studios of Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, PA, it's time for another episode of chemical-free horticultural hijinks You Bet Your Garden.

I'm your host, Mike McGrath.

Can the stories about your grandparents achieving success by applying Epsom salts to almost every plant in their garden be true?

And what exactly are these mysterious salts?

On today's show, we'll discuss how to properly use the salts of Epsom and reveal how it was discovered by cows with good taste.

Otherwise, it's a phone call show, cats and kittens.

That's right.

We will take that heaping helping of your telecommunicated questions, comments, tips, tricks, suggestions and resolutely referenced ramifications.

So keep your eyes and your ears right here, true believer, because it's all coming up faster than you making your roses look dishwasher-fresh right after this.

- Support for You Bet Your Garden is provided by the Espoma company, offering a complete selection of natural organic plant foods and potting soils.

More information about Espoma and the Espoma natural gardening community can be found at espoma.com.

- Welcome to another thrilling episode of You Bet Your Garden.

From the studios of Lehigh Valley Public Media, in Bethlehem, PA, I am your host, Mike McGrath.

Coming up in the Question of the Week, I bet even people who don't like this show will stay tuned, because we're actually going to tell you what Epsom Salts is, what it's good for, what it's bad for, and all sorts of fun stuff.

So you better hang in there until after all your fabulous phone calls at 888 492 9444.

Sharon, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Hi, Mike.

How are you doing?

I am just ducky, thanks for asking.

I would reach over to my Phillies bobblehead as well because as we tape this show, the Phillies are doing ducky, but oh, I hope I just didn't jinx the team.

All right.

Where are you, Sharon?

- In Clearfield County, central Pennsylvania.

- All right.

What can we do for Sharon in Central PA?

- Well, I believe we are located in growing zone 5B, and we travel quite often to Virginia and have fallen in love with the crepe myrtles in that area.

- That's easy to do.

- And I wondered if we could even make one survive in our area.

- Now, 5B sounds a little low for your area.

I realize it's not Center City, Philly, and it's not Florida.

But what's your average cold stretch in winter?

Temperature?

- We have...

The lowest we have averaged is around ten to 12 below.

- OK. - But normal.. normal temperature is usually in the 20s to low 30s.

- OK. Yeah, not good for gardening outdoors in the winter.

All right.

So here's the straight skinny.

I love crepe myrtles, too.

There are many forms and varieties that these plants take, but one thing is always certain.

They're the last things to bloom in your garden.

And just as all of the pollinating insects and your psyche preparing for winter and gloom needs them, there they are.

There's those flowers.

Now, crepe myrtle is a very late-blooming plant.

And when that happens at the end of the season and frost comes, you do the most important thing a gardener can do.

Leave it alone, go inside, watch the World Series, anything.

Just don't be hurting your poor plants.

In the springtime, when the crepe myrtle begins to regrow again, shows some nice new green growth - which may be late, so you don't panic about this - that's when you take off, that's when you prune as much as the plant grew the previous year.

So, you know, if it put on two feet, you cut it back two feet.

You don't cut it to the ground.

That information is bad, but it lingers out there in books and all sorts of mischievous, bad garden advice givers.

Just because it can survive a pruning to the ground doesn't mean that's a good thing to do.

So you prune in the spring, about two weeks after new growth, and you don't overdo it.

And then what you wind up with is not only the best possible blooms, because crepe myrtle does benefit from a spring haircut, but you wind up with the blooms always at the same height for your eye, which is really important with this plant.

This will also provide frost protection.

A sure way to kill a crepe myrtle would be to prune it in the fall, as soon as the flowers start to fade.

Then you really have a chance to seize defeat from the jaws of victory.

But prune it at the right time of year, it's rejuvenating to the plant.

And instead of you going to a garden center or a big box store and falling in love with the plant that your eye first catches, you look for varieties that are labeled and listed and known to be cold-hardy.

- OK. - All right?

- Well, thank you very much.

That's very helpful, - and I appreciate the time.

- Oh, I appreciate the call.

It's always great to talk about one of my favorite plants.

At 888 492 9444.

Mary, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Hello, Mike.

- Hello.

- Thank you for taking my call.

- Oh, thank you so much for making it, Mary.

How are you doing?

Very well.

With the exception... Uh-oh.

Go ahead.

- Oh, I was going to say of the leaves on the trees in my yard.

- Hmm.

Where is your yard?

Where are you?

- It is in Morrisdale, PA. - Boy, we got a lot of people listening out there, you know, I could be rude and say, "Must not have a lot to do, do you?"

but we love hearing from people out there in central PA. Now, what's wrong with your leaves, Mary?

- I have been told that they are Norway maples.

- Right.

- And they have previous years had black spots on him.

- Mm-hmm.

- This year, though, the black spots have killed the leaves, and in about two weeks.

- Hmmm.

- Two weeks' time, they were dead, right on the tree.

- There is a disease going around, relatively new to me, but for all I know, it's, you know, old news to people who really know about gardening.

- Uh-huh.

- But it's called Maple...

Maple Tree Wilt.

- And we discussed it... - Oh!

- Yeah, we discussed it on the show I'm thinking maybe like six, eight weeks ago, something like that.

- Uh-huh.

- And it is...

I would think that because of the wicked weather, you and I and everybody else on the planet, it seems, has experienced this season, that it's going to be at its worst.

True black spot is often a disease that comes from overhead watering.

We had a couple of dry spells, but most of the summer and spring has been very wet.

Has the same been happening to you?

- Correct, yes.

- And are there other trees in your landscape that are affected?

- Well, only the Norway Maples.

The regular maples are fine.

- Mm, OK. - And everything is, I think, a little off.

- Yes.

Yeah, everything is a little off.

- Yes.

- Including me.

- Well... - Me too.

- One thing, years ago I had a great show.

It was like the superhero team-up.

I had Mel Bartholemew, who was the... Was, he's passed away, the creator of the square foot gardening method, and Lee Reich, who's the author of The Pruning Book, and I believe the Dirt Doctor from Texas, Howard Garrett.

They were all on the show together and it was very lively.

- And when I said... - Oh, I bet.

..not to compost these leaves, same situation as you, they all got on top of me.

"No, you put everything in the compost pile!"

And I said, "Well, what about the disease?"

He said, I think it was Lee who said, "How are the plants going to learn to adapt to this disease "if they don't get inoculated, "if they don't get these vaccinations "that will help build up their immunity?"

And then he goes on to tell us how he composts his old jeans and everything like that, you know.

- Oh, my goodness.

- He throws nothing away.

So I would, oddly enough, this is probably the strangest answer I'm going to give for quite a while.

I would make an effort to include these leaves.

You do make compost, from the way you've been talking.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

I would definitely, you know, I would really try to keep this compost honking hot over the winter time, then in the spring I would spread that compost around this tree, and keep an eye out for problems, because as you know as well as I do, this spring is, next spring is going to tell the tale.

But that gives you something natural to try.

- Absolutely.

And we know that's the best way.

- Absolutely.

Oh, you said it.

- Well, thank you so much.

- My pleasure.

Thank you for calling.

Number to call.

Scratch it into the wall so you doesn't forgets it.

888 492.

9444.

Don, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Good afternoon, Mike.

Thanks for taking my call.

- Well, thank you, Don.

Thank you for making it.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whatever it happens to be where you are listening or actually you, you're talking to me.

So where are you, Don?

I'm in Morrisville, Pennsylvania.

- OK. - Right across the Delaware River from Trenton, New Jersey.

- All right.

What can we do for Don?

I have had a disaster in my raised bed where my tomatoes are growing.

Oh!

- About a month ago, I started to notice, it looked like wilt initially.

The leaves were yellowing and dying from the bottom up.

And I started, I went and took a careful look at them.

I cut off some leaves and examined them with a hand lens.

And what I see, it looks like a shotgun blast of little black paint balls.

I mean, just tiny black spots all over the bottom of the leaves.

And as the leaves, as it goes on in time, the spots will come through to the top.

They get bigger, leaf turns yellow and dies.

- Hmm.

- My Google research says it's either bacterial speck or bacterial spot.

And if I'm right, it's a disease caused by infected seed.

- Well, it can be... - It's not very common, but... - It can be... Well, it's common enough when it hits you.

It can be infected seed or it can come in on plants, when you buy transplants.

And that's how I think I got it.

I did buy some transplants.

Mmm.

Bacterial speck is a fatal disease.

There's no cure for this season.

Now, the difference...

It is very difficult to diagnose diseases by just looking at the plant.

- I understand.

- Only because tomatoes are prone to so many different diseases and the climate keeps changing, so what would not have affected us five years ago is now prevalent.

So you have these little... You have these dots all over your leaves.

What about your fruit?

- The fruit so far has been...

Some of it has gotten infected, - but most of it looks OK. - Right?

From the advice I was seeing on the Internet, so it's got to be true... That says that you can't eat the fruit, you're supposed to - throw it away.

- Oh, that's nonsense.

- The fruit look good, it looks... My Brandywines look like a Brandywine should, you know, they got a few cracks around the stem on some of them.

And the cherry tomatoes, they look marvelous.

They're larger than your average cherry tomatoes, and that's I guess I've bred for it.

- Yeah, that's great.

- But they're delicious.

I love them, but I've been afraid to eat them.

- No.

- People say you can get ill - from them.

- It's nonsense.

- OK, I like your answer!

Oh, yeah, I mean, there should be a license to post on the Internet or something like that.

If the fruit shows symptoms of the bacterial speck, it is still safe to eat.

Just cut away those parts, like, peel the tomato and make sauce out of it.

If the tomato looks good, it's a good tomato.

So here's what I want you to do.

I want you to go out and do a major search and destroy mission.

I want you to spend, you know, get up early one morning and, you know, plick...flick, plick off.

Now, you've never been given that advice, to plick something off.

- No, it's usually something else.

- It's the end of a long day here, Don.

Pluck off every discolored leaf you can find, literally every one, and then be ready with a copper solution.

Copper goes back to ancient Roman and Greece times, was used to control diseases on grapevines.

So then spray what's left with copper.

Don't overdo the copper, but do give it a good spraying this first time.

Clean up underneath your tomato plants.

Make sure there's no fallen leaves down there.

It sounds like your case is so mild, to me, it sounds like you could fight it, and...but next year, don't use that bed for anything solanaceous.

- Thank you for what you've told me.

I appreciate it very much.

- I'm happy to reassure you.

All right.

You take care, pal.

All right, as always, it is that time, cats and kittens.

Time for the Question of the Week, which we are calling... A couple of years ago, Carol in Chesapeake, Virginia, e-mailed about a sudden and severe snail problem she was having with her container-grown flowers.

She wrote... Eh, must've been a wet year in Tidewater.

Now, among my responses were "never use mothballs for anything."

They are nasty little cancer bombs.

I added that beer traps do work very well when they are used correctly.

I added copper barriers to the useful list of slug and snail-repelling products, and mentioned that I thought I had heard every possible use for those mysterious "Epsom salts".

But murdering mollusks was a new one for me.

We move on to Brad in Annapolis, who wrote looking for help with his "deformed tomato plants".

As he explained, they are growing on essentially flat soil... As opposed to what, moderately flat soil?

Come on, guys.

And have been fed an organic tomato food.

At planting time, I mixed my native soil 50-50 with a Humus and Manure blend...

I don't know what that is, either.

And added a tablespoon or so of Epsom salts to each plant.

About the same time, Karen in Tryon, North Carolina, wrote...

I've been working on the same thing for decades, Kare, and I still don't know what my opinion is.

Epsom salts are always in the top ten of audience questions I've come to expect when I do a public appearance.

"My mother sprinkle a tablespoon of Epsom salts "around her roses several times a season."

"My grandfather added Epsom salts to the planting holes "of his tomatoes every year," and various and endless variations thereof.

Plus, the most popular question at these events, "Are Epsom salts organic?"

Now, the only answer I had for this seemingly innocent deathtrap of a question was to say, "Technically, no."

Epsom salts aren't an organic amendment because they're a combination of two chemicals that are manufactured in a lab.

But it also seems to be harmless, and it seems like half the world is using it in their gardens.

So, I'd call it a technical organic "no", but it's not worth making an issue out of, either.

Then I would swear to make a mental note to research the subject when I got home, but there were always cartoons on TV when I got home.

And, as we all know, mental notes aren't worth the paper they're not written on.

But just a few days ago, as the crows fly, I got an e-mail from the National Guard Bureau, a nonprofit organization dedicated to getting more people to garden, and whose members represent a good 90% of the nation's seed, live plant, and garden tools suppliers.

The headline?

"Epsom Salts in the Garden.

"Good or Bad?"

So, down the research rabbit hole I went, once again, chasing knowledge, rumor, old-timey wisdom, and the writings of many people with questionable memories.

Always nice to find a good scandal in there, as well, if you got one.

Anyway, the author of the article, tomato expert Daniel Goodspeed of the venerable J.W.

Jung Seed Company, J-U-N-G, explains much in a few words, quickly revealing that the revered substance whose legal name is magnesium sulfate does have actual value in the garden, and that the benefits it conveys are correctly attributed to the two plants to whom it is most often linked.

Those are roses and tomatoes, But only when it's applied as a dilute liquid drench, and never in the form of the solid material that most pass-along stories cite.

In fact, a couple of tablespoons of actual, undiluted Epsom salts can harm plants.

Now, in a nutshell, the author explains that Epsom salts are 10% magnesium, a vital plant micronutrient that, when applied in liquid form as a diluted soil drench, helps plants better absorb a host of vital nutrients and improves the color of both fruit and foliage.

Rosarians, we are told, will give their plants a drench a month before show time, so as to help make their flowers look the best.

Two tablespoons thoroughly dissolved in a gallon of water is the right dose, but applying Epsom salts as a solid or in higher liquid concentrations can block the plant's absorption of calcium, which can lead to cracking and blossom end rot on tomatoes.

It can also lower the P.H.

of your soil, sometimes precipitates... preticipets...precipitously.

We move on.

A curious website named Apartment Therapy...

I don't know, answered my big question.

How and when did Epsom salts come into our collective lives?

In the British town of Epsom, of course!

Can't make this stuff up, kids.

Located in the Surry Hills region south of London, it was here in 1618 that a cow herder found a well whose water was so bitter-tasting that his thirsty cows refused to drink from it.

From there, we were off and running, literally, as the naturally-occurring magnesium sulfate turns out to be a potent laxative.

Then it was also found to have soothing and healing powers when added to bathwater.

Soon, Epsom was a spa town where people flocked to take the waters, one way or another.

But alas, that bitter well soon ran dry, and blocked-up Brits had to turn to the manufactured version we know today.

Well, that sure was some important advice that many of you will choose to disbelieve in favor of the tremendous tomato tales told by your great-grandad.

Isn't that right?

Well, whether you want to or not, you still have the option of reading this sure-to-cause-contention article over at your leisure or your leisure, because the Question of the Week appears in print at the Gardens Alive website.

Just click the link for the Question of the Week at our website, which is still and will forever be, sing out loud, kids!

YouBetYourGarden.org.

Gardens Alive supports the You Bet Your Garden Question of the Week, and you'll always find the latest Question of the Week at the Gardens Alive website.

You Bet Your Garden is a half hour public television show, an hour-long public radio show and podcast, all produced and delivered to you weekly by Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, P.A.

Our radio show is distributed by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange.

You Bet Your Garden was created by Mike McGrath.

Mike McGrath was created when he was foolishly seated in the very back of a classroom by an elderly nun where, armed only with a number-two pencil, he was able to escape by digging his way out through the back wall.

Yikes!

My producer is threatening to replace my Gatorade with Epsom salts if I don't get out of this studio.

We must be out of time.

But you can call us any time at... Or send us your e-mail.

Your tired, your poor, your wretched refuse teeming towards our garden shore at... And always, please, include your location.

It surprises us about three quarters of the time.

You will find all of this contact information, plus answers to your garden questions, audio of this show, video of this show, audio and video of all the shows, oy, and links to our internationally-renowned podcast all up at that website, cats and kittens.

YouBetYourGarden.org.

I'm your host, Mike McGrath, and I'm busier than a duck sorting through my garlic harvest and getting ready to install 100 saffron crocus bulbs that should arrive any day now.

So, just look for the man with the orange hands, and I'll see you again next week.