We finally filled and used the spa today, and because hubby & I been working hard out in the garden, we added some Epsom Salts to ease our aches and pains.

I just can't bring myself to pull the plug out of the spa and send all that water down the drain when our lawns and gardens are crying out for water.

My question is:

Can I re-use this water on our flower or vegetable gardens?

Will the Epsom Salts harm them and if so, can I bucket it out onto the lawn?

I hate the idea of wasting water. I'm really hoping that I don't have to pull the plug in the spa and lose all that water.

Yes, I think you can. I know butterflies LOVE magnesium.
They sell "salts" for butterfly water dishes.

I've had them sit on me, and lick my skin on vacation when I took high dose magnesium!

from http://www.thebutterflysite.com/butt...behavior.shtml
http://221.135.191.194/butterfly/bgardening_faq.php

If you spread it around and not pour in one place... seems plants like it too:
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/...054611573.html

If epsom salts is all you put in it, go for it!

I actually buy it just to put around my plants. Go easy, since it's in liquid form and the plants will absorb it a lot faster than if it had to *rain in*.

You may not notice that it helps, since it's late in the season. But try that next spring and summer. All my plants seemed to shrug off pests and disease better, and absorb what fertilizer they got.

IF you have chlorine or other chemicals in it, do not use on plants. A little may not hurt them, but better safe than sorry. Some places probably have rules about how to drain waste water like that (pools and spas) but I just drain the pool onto the lawn. Doesn't hurt the grass, as I only use chlorine and drain it slow, spreading it around.

Duh, what am I thinking? Our season is over, but yours is just starting.

Thank you ladies! We got as much water out as we could, and it's now on the garden...... about 250 liters or 65 gallons of it.

I do hate wasting water and I just couldn't bring myself to pull the plug on it all. We'd not put anything else in besides the Epson Salts, so we'll sit back now and see if our plants thrive on it or not!

Oh, I think you'll notice. Where I saw the most improvement was on my biggest problem plants - the roses, especially.

I used to have to treat them every couple weeks, and still by the end of the season they'd look pretty bad. Still blooming, but not a leaf left on them lol.

With the epsome salts, I stopped using the other stuff altogether, and the plants still looked good - leafy! - at first snow. The other plants had bigger, better blooms, less bugs.

That's a lot of water. I can see why you'd want to re-use it.

This has me wondering, what zone you are in and what kind of plants you grow. I'm moving from zone 4 to zone 9, like a whole different world. I have to learn gardening all over again, different plants, different techniques. My season will be closer to yours, as I understand, with the veggies being planted sometime in (our) fall.

Foriegn concept to me!