Leftover wood ash

[JudgeTex]

Don't know why (as I am not a botanist) but dressing your vegetable garden with leftover wood ash produces some monster plants. We had a tomoto last year that I hollowed out and made into a guest house. Also, I used a leaf of Romaine lettuce from our garden as a sail for a boat that I made out of half of a watermelon.

The wood ash really works.

[jsmoker]

Burnt wood ash (is that redundant?) is an excellent source of potassium (aka potash). On bags of fertilizer the three numbers (ie 24-8-12) show the percentage by weight of the nutrients nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Potassium is important to plants in the formation of cholorphyll and to help fight off diesases. Some gardners also swear by increased levels of potassium in getting more/larger blooms from their flowers.

So yeah, dressing your gardens with wood ash would absolutely help your veggies and flowers. Beware though, too much of a good thing can be harmful. And don't use ashes that contain the ash from charcoal briquettes - those contain tars and chemical binders that can harm plants.

The circle of life.... put your ashes on your corn and taters, grow huge veggies, Q up the veggies and use the ashes to fertilize again.....

[icemn62]

Mother nature at her best.

[Hoorenga]

It can be helpful if your soil is acidic. When applying wood ash to the soil it should be done sparingly if you don't have an exact idea of what the PH of your soil actually is. Plants such as rhodenderons and rasberries like an acid soil so the addition of wood ash which neutralizes the acid in the soil could be detrimental. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to continually dump excess wood ash on a small garden area as it would quickly become too alkaline.

"As a fertilizer, wood ash contains no nitrogen, some phosphorus, and a fair amount of potassium in a 0-1-3 ratio. Because wood ash comes from plant material, it also contains other important soil nutrients, particularly calcium. Potassium contributes to the root growth and stem strength of plants, while calcium helps in root development. Calcium also reduces the acidity of the soil and helps develop nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Generally hardwoods produce more nutrients than softwoods.

What all this means is that adding wood ashes will reduce the acidity of your soil and provide it with important nutrients for plant growth. However, it’s important not to add too much to the soil, as this can kill plants. The best approach is to store your wood ashes over the winter in a covered metal container. In the spring when the soil is on the dry side, apply the wood ash to the garden at a rate of 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. (Twenty pounds of ashes would fill a five-gallon pail approximately.) Repeat the application annually."

[Mark]

I concur with all. Plus ash can actually help repel some garden pests. I guess it's abrasive.

[SauceMan]

never really thought about using it in the garden.

I dug out a big part of the old garden and been using that to put burn offs in.

Constantly shagging the dogs out of the ash hole

[jgh1204]

So you are telling me that when I dump the ashes over the fence onto my neighbor's lawn, I am actually, being a GOOD neighbor. :)

[Kevin]

So, I don't know squat about chemistry. I have to ad PH minus to the pool (not the one I drop the kids off at). Would this indicate I should use the ash in the garden or not?

[jt]

Constantly shagging the dogs out of the ash hole
There's something wrong about this

[Mark]

So, I don't know squat about chemistry. I have to ad PH minus to the pool (not the one I drop the kids off at). Would this indicate I should use the ash in the garden or not?

You asked for it Kevin:

"pH" is a measure of your soil's acidity or alkalinity. 7 the value for pure water (neutral pH), and 14 being the value for concentrated sodium hydroxide. Each plant in your garden or yard, has an ideal pH range that it will thrive in. This ideal range varies from plant to plant. If your garden soil is outside of this ideal range, the vital nutrients and minerals your plants need may become "locked up" in the soil, and the roots are unable to absorb them.

Why do nutrients get "locked up" in the soil? The mid range of the pH scale is the optimal range for bacterial growth to promote decomposition, a process that releases nutrients and minerals, making them available to your plants. Mid range pH is also the ideal range for growth of soil microorganisms that convert nitrogen in the air into a form that your plants can use. Outside of the ideal range, both processes are increasingly inhibited.

Soil ph can get out of balance for a number of reasons. Most often, using inorganic fertilizers will make your soil more acidic over time. Adding amendments to the soil can also alter your soil's pH. If you do not test your soil occasionally, you are passing by the opportunity to maximize your plants' potential in the size, health and quality of flowers, vegetables and fruits.

Optimal pH Levels for Vegetables

Vegetables: Ideal pH
Artichoke 6.5 - 7.5
Asparagus 6.0 - 8.0
Beans 6.0 - 7.5
Beet Root 6.0 - 7.5
Broccoli 6.0 - 7.0
Brussel Sprouts 6.0 - 7.5
Cabbage 6.0 - 7.5
Carrot 5.5 - 7.0
Cauliflower 5.5 - 7.5
Celery 6.0 - 7.0
Chicory 5.0 - 6.5
Chinese Cabbage 6.0 - 7.5
Corn 5.5 - 7.0
Cress 6.0 - 7.0
Cucumber 5.5 - 7.5
Garlic 5.5 - 7.5
Horseradish 6.0 - 7.0
Kale 6.0 - 7.5
Kohlrabi 6.0 - 7.5
Leek 6.0 - 8.0
Lentil 5.5 - 7.0
Lettuce 6.0 - 7.0
Mushroom 6.5 - 7.5
Mustard 6.0 - 7.5
Onion 6.0 - 7.0
Parsnip 5.5 - 7.5
Pea 6.0 - 7.5
Peanut 5.0 - 6.5
Pepper 5.5 - 7.0
Potato 4.5 - 6.0
Potato- Sweet 5.5 - 6.0
Pumpkin 5.5 - 7.5
Radish 6.0 - 7.0
Rhubarb 5.5 - 7.0
Shallot 5.5 - 7.0
Soybean 5.5 - 6.5
Spinach 6.0 - 7.5
Tomato 5.5 - 7.5
Turnip 5.5 - 7.0
Water Cress 5.0 - 8.0
Watermelon 5.5 - 6.5

[BBQchef33]

Seems i cant compare to all the scientific facts here... BUT....just to add a question.. years ago, i used to throw my stuff in my compost pile but stopped after reading that the ash contains lye that can be harmful to the plants. dont know ifjsut talked about briquettes, or also lump and raw wood.?? any info on that?

(that Lye also wrecks the firebox when it gets wet, thus why you should not leave it there).

[Mark]

It depends on the brand of briquettes and/or species of wood, etc., etc. Lots of data available on using wood as an industrial fuel since that's how many lumber/paper mills are powered.

Please rephrase your request. I'm not sure what you're looking for.

[Mark]

You looking for info like this?

[Mark]

Or this?

Using Wood Ashes In the Garden

http://www.hort.uconn.edu/ipm/homegrnd/htms/woodshes.htm

[jsmoker]

Seems i cant compare to all the scientific facts here... BUT....just to add a question.. years ago, i used to throw my stuff in my compost pile but stopped after reading that the ash contains lye that can be harmful to the plants. dont know ifjsut talked about briquettes, or also lump and raw wood.?? any info on that?



I compost most of my veggie scraps and grass clippings and don't use much wood ash in the bin - even when I do a 100% wood burn. Mostly because it increases the potassium number too much in the mix. Good compost is a mixture of greens (nitrogen) and browns (carbon). Since burning the wood releases all of the carbon, there isn't any "composting" value to the ash other than adding some additional nutrients to your mix. However, potassium does act as an antagonist to nitrogen and will bind it up making it unusable for plants - and the nitrogen is one of the main reasons many people make and topdress with compost.

Best bet, IMHO, is sticking with greens and browns for composting and use wood ash as a dressing in the bed to control your ph levels.

[Kevin]

Thanks Mark,
That was exactly what I was looking for in my usual smart alec manner. I grow primarily corn and peppers in the garden. Popcorn this year. We'll see how that goes!

[BAG3]

Yes it works. It took me three years at my last house to get a "great garden". We always dumped kitchen scraps, ash, and stall cleanings into the garden and it did grow an abundance of vegies. Brian and I always seemed to have some items we could trade and enjoy.

Amazing how mother nature works with the thow away stuff.

[BBQchef33]

My entire garden is a compost pile. At the end of the growing season, everthing gets turned under, landscaper dumps all the grass clippings froma few hosues in that gader, i ass all the leaves from the maple trees as they fall. Once the leaves are done, I run down the road and load up a dozen trash cans with horse poop. till the stuff all together and cover it wait a balck tarp(pool cover for the winter. Turn it a time or 2. Come February, I add a little more poop, give it a quick rototill, wet it down adn cover it agin till may 1. It gets a final tilling and wrakeing and i have a garden of Black gold. Cucumbers that grow 2 stories high, and tomatoes on 10 foot plants.

Mark, i was just asking about the lye content.. your grid shows no lye. Im not sure where i read that.. it may have come out of the pit crew. I guess i'll just stick with throwing it in a pile in the woods.

[brdbbq]

i ass all the leaves from


Interesting.

[Arlin_MacRae]

Don't forget:
I run down the road and load up a dozen trash cans with horse poop.

The visuals I'm getting here, Phil, are stunning!

8)

[Mark]

i ass all the leaves from


Interesting.
Quaint; like the pioneers used to do it.

[Mark]

Phil:

Industrial grade lye is sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and is very caustic. You're right that it wasn't listed in the proximate analysis of wood ash but sodium and calcium were. And wood ash can be processed to extract certain alkaline chemicals; just not "lye" per se.

Here's an idea. You got a pool right? Do you measure its ph? Then maybe you can you test your garden soil too. And if so, you can probably dampen an ash sample with plain water and measure its ph too. If your soil need the ph then you know you have a ready source and can experiment with how much of it to use.

Or not. Whatever. But its still a good idea to know what your garden soil ph is.

[david]

Mark, i was just asking about the lye content.. your grid shows no lye. Im not sure where i read that.. it may have come out of the pit crew. I guess i'll just stick with throwing it in a pile in the woods.

Put some wood-ash in a mesh strainer and pour water through it. Don't put your hand in the stream coming out because it will burn (I haven't tried it). I believe that the ash doesn't actually contain any lye, but that it's used as an ingredient in making lye.

I dump my ash in my compost pile, but I'm not trying to make any active hot compost. What I've got is a rot-pile, where I dump everything for a year, and then use last years rotted-down pile for the garden.