Looking for a few great ways to use all of those wood ashes coming from your fireplace or wood stove this fall and winter to recharge your garden?
When it comes to using wood ashes in the garden, it often causes a lot of confusion among gardeners. Many wonder whether or not ashes help rejuvenate tired soil – or whether or not they can actually be detrimental to the vegetable plants and flowers they grow.
The good news is that without a doubt, ashes can definitely help the soil in your vegetable garden. And the plants that grow there as well. Especially if your soil happens to be lacking in many of the nutrients that ashes can give back. But as you will learn in today’s article, how, when and where you use them is the ultimate key to success!
How Ashes Help Garden Soil – How To Recharge Your Garden With Wood Ashes
It’s important to note that the makeup of ashes can vary with the wood they were produced from. But with that said, most hardwood and pine wood ashes contain good amounts of calcium, potassium, magnesium and phosphorous, along with a slew of other trace elements. All of which happen to be key and ideal nutrients vegetable plants and flowers need for strong growth and production.
At the top of the list of nutrients that wood ashes help replenish is calcium. In fact, calcium makes up nearly one-fifth of the content of wood ash. And that’s important because calcium happens to also be extremely important in the early development and cell structure of vegetable plants.
Without it, plants struggle to build strong stems and cell walls. In addition, calcium also plays a major role in helping to stave off blossom end rot in the fruit of tomato and pepper plants.
Potassium (often called potash) is also extremely important to plants. It helps them to both absorb water and aids greatly in the photosynthesis process. Potash makes up nearly 5% of the content of wood ashes. And when applied and mixed into garden soil, it can quickly replenish the levels of the much needed nutrient.
Although the remaining minerals and nutrients found in ashes all have lower concentration percentages, they all certainly do their part to help in recharging your garden soil with energy as well.
Helping Adjust The pH of Garden Soil – How To Recharge Your Garden With Wood Ashes
It’s not just nutrients that ashes help with in a garden setting. As a final benefit, wood ashes also have the ability to increase the pH of a soil. This can actually be a huge plus if you happen to have overly acidic soil.
In many cases, soils that are too acidic need to have lime put on them to help bring them back to a more neutral pH. A pH range between 6.5 and 7.5 is considered neutral. And neutral soil is what is needed for the large majority of plants grown in a garden.
If your soil happens to be lower than 6.5 or right near it, wood ashes can be a great substitute for adding lime to raise it to a more neutral level. Of course, wood ashes allow you to do it for free!
How To Recharge Your Garden With Wood Ashes
We will cover more on using wood ash for overly acidic soils in a moment – but first let’s cover how to simply use it for any garden soil to replenish key nutrients.
One of the best ways to use ashes is by applying them as an overall treatment to your garden soil. This can be done in the spring or fall. It’s great for helping to rejuvenate the soil without the need for chemical fertilizers. But the key is to not add too much to the soil to change its pH balance.
As a rule of thumb, if your soil’s pH is close to neutral, spread about 10 pounds of ash for every 1000 square feet of garden space. That amounts to enough ash to fill a 5 gallon bucket or two and cast it out evenly on the soil.
When spreading ash, it is always a good idea to wear gloves, goggles and a dust mask for protection. In addition, spraying the garden to wet it down after applying it will help hold the ashes in place.
If your soil happens to be on the more acidic side, a good rule of thumb is to use four to five parts wood ash for every part of lime you would have used.
Before applying, it’s best to test to know your overall pH. If your pH is more near neutral, simply apply ash at the 10 pounds per 1000 square foot rate. You can test quickly and easily with a digital pH probe. Affiliate Link: 4-in-1 pH Soil Meter/Soil Moisture Meter/Digital Plant Temperature/Soil Moisture
Applying Wood Ash On Specific Crops – How To Recharge Your Garden With Wood Ashes
You can also save and use wood ashes to lightly top coat the surface around plants during the growing season. By doing this, the nutrients slowly leach into the soil and help power the plants.
Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, lettuce, kale and onions all benefit from a small amount of ashes around their root zone. And for tomato and pepper plants specifically, ashes added in the planting hole as well will power plants even more! See: How To Use Fireplace Ashes To Grow Great Tomatoes
A quarter cup of ashes spread around mature summer vegetable plants can help add calcium and potassium to spur growth and production. Simply spread around and scratch into the soil. Again, do not over apply as too much can raise the soil pH too high.
Wood Ash In A Compost Pile – How To Use Wood Ashes In The Garden
If using in your garden and on plants wasn’t enough, wood ashes are also great for your compost pile. Adding ashes to your compost pile helps to give the finished compost a higher nutrient base. In addition, it also adds more organic substance to the compost as well.
As with using in the garden and around plants, moderation is the key. A compost pile should have no more than five to ten percent of its makeup be wood ashes. Any more than this ratio and you risk raising the pH beyond good growing parameters.
When adding ashes, mix the ash thoroughly into the pile to distribute it evenly. A good rule of thumb is to add a pail of ashes for every cubic yard of compost. This will keep the balance it tact, all while adding valuable nutrients to the finished compost.
A Few Cautions When Using Ashes – How To Use Wood Ashes In The Garden
Although in most cases wood ashes can be beneficial to both the soil and the plants that grow in them, there are a few instances where you need to use caution.
Since wood ashes raise soil pH, they are not a good choice for using around any acid loving plants. Pine trees, azaleas, camellia bushes, blueberries, and other plants that prefer a more acidic soil should never have the soil around them treated with wood ash.
Finally, it’s always best to know exactly where your wood ashes come from. Wood ash from pallets or commercially treated wood products should always be avoided. They often contain chemicals that can be harmful to both you, your soil, and your plants.
For safety reasons and best results, stick to using ash from typical fires in your fireplace or fire pit where no other products (i.e. cardboard, plastics, etc.) have been burned along with the wood. Here is to using wood ashes this fall and winter – and next spring and summer to recharge and power your garden and plants!
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This Is My Garden is a garden website created by gardeners, for gardeners. Jim and Mary Competti have been writing gardening, DIY and recipe articles and books and speaking for over 15 years from their 46 acre Ohio farm. They publish three articles every week, 52 weeks a year. Sign up today to follow via email, or follow along!