Are Ashes Good for the Garden?
They say that having a green thumb means that you’re really good with plants, but if you’re adding ashes to give more soil nutrients, you’ll want to read this article.
Ash is great for the garden under the right conditions. When forest burn down they grow back even stronger; the reason for this is the benefits of the wood ash on the soil. Make sure not to over apply ash as it can work as a weed or plant suppressant.
When should I put ashes in my garden?
One of the best seasons for putting ash in your garden will be in the winter and in the early spring. These are seasons where there isn’t much happening in the soil and will be perfect when the weather starts to warm up. You need to wait for at least one month before planting to allow the ash time to raise the pH levels. If you plan to cultivate any kind of vegetable or fruit, you want to do this exactly one month earlier for the best results. Learn more about the best pH for garden soil in this post.
Normal soil may have an exceptional ability to grow food however the chances are higher when you increase the calcium carbonate. This is normally achieved when you use lime to reduce acidity. This is why landscapers are using landscaping lime to get greener grass. Most folks at home can get the same results using wood ash that does the same thing and doesn’t cost anything in the process. Learn more about using lime in our Should I put Lime in my Garden post.
How you add and apply wood ash into and onto soil is an easy process, but you do need to take some safety steps. It’s not like you’re going to suit up ‘Breaking Bad-style’, although you should know that wood ash isn’t the best thing to breathe in or get onto your skin. You should also get an alkaline kit so you can test your soil to see what the pH level happens to be. Any soil that is above 6.5 to 7 won’t need wood ash since it’ll make the soil too alkaline.
You should have ash that is cool and hasn’t been smoldering in any way before you add it onto or mixed into the soil. Use a good method to distribute ash by taking an open weave burlap bag that has a loose mesh. If your burlap bag has tight mesh, you can loosen the weaving by stretching it over an object that’s rounded and tugging it back and forth until the material starts to allow ash through.
Add your ash into the bag and tie off the end with a zip tie and a long stick. Now you can use this to sprinkle soil just like you add powdered sugar to pastries with an even coating. Keep the bag close to the soil so you aren’t getting much ash that gets in the air. If you have a filter mask, garden gloves (paid link), and gardening clothes, this will keep the ash from getting on you.
Is It Ok To Put Fireplace Ashes In The Garden?
As long as you’re using wood ash only and not artificial logs or chemical covered ash that’s coming from your fireplace. This is also needless to say that all ash that comes from burning wood used in your home is fine to use as gardening ash. You do need to be careful about using wood that is natural and not treated in any way. Don’t use pressure-treated wood or wood that had been stained or painted.
This is fine for kindling wood to some degree because it’s cheap and easy to burn but the chemicals leftover will be bad for the ash. This is why you want to avoid using pallet wood or wood that was used for construction. Even the wood that might be used for backyard campfires should naturally be wood that contains no chemicals or residue. You don’t want the smoke from this stuff on your grilled food, so why put it in your soil to grow food!
Charcoal that is made for cooking is perfectly fine to use in your garden likewise since these are approved for cooking. Just make sure that the coals and cinders are all cooled before adding them to your soil. Wood pellets, sawdust, and even leftover tree trimmings (like branches and stalks) that are from your garden are also fine to use as ash additionally.
Which plants benefit from ashes?
The list of plants that love wood ash include roses, hydrangeas, lavender, conifers, juniper, and obviously grass (paid links). We tend to see these plants as a décor element that isn’t being harvested for food so the list of plants that are excellent choices for fruits and vegetables tends to be selective. You can read more about hydrangeas in this post.
If you like growing onions, garlic, and chives (aka green onions) then using ash is perfect for these easy-to-grow veggies. Another group of vegetables includes asparagus, lettuce, cabbage, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts are all happy from having ash mixed or sprinkled onto the soil. Citrus plants like lemons (paid link) and limes certainly love ash since these trees can benefit from the extra soil nutrients.
You can even add ash to the soil that is used for growing tomatoes and fruit trees of all kinds. Vegetables that grow underground including carrots and other Rooty veggies will do very well from ash. You might want to avoid using ash when growing potatoes since this vegetable prefers more acidic soil. This also applies to blueberries, Azalea, Rhododendron flowers, and holly.
Can you put ashes in compost bin?
If you have a backyard compost bin, then putting ash inside this is always a good idea. What it does is lowers the acidity levels and helps neutralize the compost by the time it’s ready to use. If you don’t like the smell that your compost bin is putting off, then using ash is a natural odor fighter and keeps those nasty fumes from seeping out. It’s a good idea to add a layer of ash for every 6 inches of compost that you’re putting in.
You can be pretty generous too so the layer applied can be as thick as half an inch, but no more than that. Using the fertilizer that comes from a compost bin will work immediately rather than waiting for a month until you get good results. Since wood ash often takes a while for vegetables, fruit, and food scraps to break down it’s already gone through that waiting period and can be added directly into the soil right away. Learn more about composting in this post.
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