woodash

[stu]

I have just had a wood burner installed at home and from now on have pure woodash to use on my plot. What is the best way to use this waste product. Thanks

[charles]

Woodash is great for the compost heap. I add all the ash from my woodturner and think I get better value from its potash, which otherwise risks leaching in winter rains when ash is spread on soil.
Also you could store some in a sack, then sprinkle it around fruiting crops like tomatoes, in summer.

[ashleigh]

Garlic loves it too

[Hawfinch]

But surely raspberries and strawberries would not benefit from compost with terribly much wood ash in it as wood ash raises the pH – my impression is also that most vegetables prefer soil slightly on the sour side?

[charles]

In my experience its difficult to change pH, apart from perhaps causing a temporary rise or fall with certain additions such as woodash.
At Lower Farm I spread compost, some with woodash, for eleven years and then had a pH test done by Laverstoke laboratories, at the same time as sending them soil from the nearby, uncomposted field. All the readings were pH 7.2 to 7.3.
I was growing lovely vegetables of all kinds, including potatoes with little scab.
Yet if you read many books and papers on vegetable growing, they advise a pH of 6.5. From the evidence of my own eyes and my results, I suggest a broader range of pH is good, and there are so many other factors at play such as general soil health.

[Hawfinch]

Ok. So maybe it’s a myth along the lines of advice on how to lower the pH of soil by incorporating lots of pine needles.
It can be quite confusing with all this “advice” or received wisdom that one so often reads here, there and everywhere. I guess an 11-year trial speaks for itself.

[Janer]

We have a log fire every evening but use a firefighter to start it. Will the chemicals in the firefighter be ok in the compost?

[charles]

Lovely autocorrect!
Sorry I don’t know what they are made of.

[Author]

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