Magnesium can be added to basil growing in a pot

Magnesium can be added to basil growing in a pot to help the herb flourish.

My grandma Paulina Raabe used to fill the bathtub with hot water, heated on the stove because we had no hot water heater. This was rural Nebraska in 1945. She would pour 2 pounds of Epsom salts into the tub to melt.

As she lowered her body into the hot water she would exclaim, “Oh, my aching bones.” Things have changed since the days of using a coal-burning stove to heat hot water. We now have spiffy hot water heaters in every home, but the muscle-ache relief obtained from Epsom salts remains effective today as it did 74 years ago.