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stove ashes on the garden

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Anonymous-0

Well-known Member
I allways disposed my wood ashes in my garden after letting them cool of corse.but now I am burning coal and am wondering if the coal ash would hurt the soil. somebody told me years ago that wild strawberrys grew really well along a stretch of old tracks in my area . because of the ashes.
 
We always dumped any type of ashes in the garden. You know that funny little weed also grew next to the RR tracks. LOL
 
In my area we get wood ash from wood burning power plants to spread on fields for different crops. 2.5 tons = 1 ton of lime and get some potash and lots of other nutrients in small quantities. Good stuff because it deliver free and the ash is free.

Coal ash, I have never tried to use it but did read that a golf course in SC. did use it and killed all the grass and can't get grass to grow there now. We have several coal fired plants here but I know of no one that uses coal ash. The power plants go to great extent to keep coal ash isolated.

I would not use coal ash on anything I have.
 
I ruined my garden by dumping wood ashes on it,about two years it grew nothing. Wood ash is a good source of potash and a littlr bit spread evenly can actually increase fertility. I have seen this at the farm where,having burned some brush,the next spring the grass grew twice as tall there. However,overloading the soil with potash can ruin its PH level and thus affect its ability to grow plants. Our pioneers used to make their own lye by pouring water over sieves of wood ash. The lye was then used in soap making and as a disinfectant in the chicken house. The brown/amber liquid was a potent form of lye..so be carefull that you spread wood ashes evenly and sparsely. There is no reason why you can't spread some on your lawn,rake up the coal pieces in the spring. Having a field is great,my parents always spread the ashes in the field next to the house.
 
get an analysis of the ash. it MAY contain several heavy metals in toxic concentrations. depends on the type of coal. wood ash does not contain similar concentrations.
 
The EPA was trying to classify Coal ash"s, from
power plants as toxic waste, but finally got
slapped down on that..because then they"ed need
special "Toxic waste" disposel sites, for waste that they"ed been dumping for over a Century !
 
Get a pellet stove and do away with all that ash problem they burn so good that clean mine out about twice a year. And the heat is better and you can trol it with a thermostat so you can get up to a warm house. All I do is feed it and clean the tubes and clinkers out once a day or so. All this is accomplish by pulling on 3 little handles real hard work. No sh no smoke no work just sit back and enjoy the fire.
Walt
PS you ever get a coal cinder in your eye you wouldn't have the stuff around.
 
I mix wood ash from burning brush with stuff in mulch pile. One year I dry walled my garden. Put down scrap drywall I wanted to get rid of.

So far, both wood ash, in small amounts, and scrap drywall seems to work for me. Still have small chunks of drywall in garder. Never spent money on a pH test. I figure tomatoes like lime, so drywall should work too.

EPA won't let coal ash to be burried in the coal mine where the the coal came from.
 
I don't burn coal but I do burn wood. I put all my ashes on my yard along with grinding all the leaves and putting them right back on yard. Every other year I put on 3/4 of a ton of pelleted lime with very little fertilizer.
 
I have put wood ash on my garden for years . The last time I had a soil test and the Calcium was off the chart. Don"t know what that means.
 
Not totally true. If you know how to lime it and mix the ashes into the soil the ashes will do no harm to soil at all. The ashes are Potash which is found in most fertilizers.We have burned hugh brush pile that ended up with 10" of ash and all we did was plow it under and the next several years we had the best looking and produceing corn and beans.
 
Shoveled a lot of coal ash into a bushel basket and carried up the outside cellar steps from my grandparent house in Weedsport NY. during my summers up there. Emptied them in in their honey wagon for spreading in the farms field. Usually had more fields than ash, but I could see if you had small garden it could be to much. I still put wood ash out in the field along with some coal ash. No problems with growing anything.
You could make soap, old timers had a wedge shaped wooden bin with straw on the bottom , put their wood ash in and pored water over it and it drained into a bucket, giving them lye for soap.
 
I've been using wood ashes for years on my garden with nothing but good results. I've also burned poor fields that ran to lots of moss and weeds and then disced the snot out of it. For the next year, maybe 2, the native grasses will be greatly improved. Then the moss starts coming back. These days the whiny girly men have made it so you can't burn in the spring when the land really needs it.
 
the only reason I wouldn't put my coal ashes on my garden and fields is the cinders. The farms downwind of coal burning power plants are more fertle than those upwind. The only real thing wrong with coal is the liars in politics (includes the epa) have brainwashed most of the population that coal = bad.
 
The wood ashes aren't enough with all the leaves that are ground up and put back on the yard. The leaves sour the ground and need more lime than just the ashes. The lime also helps the decomposing of leaves.
 
I had a bon fire in my garden area one year and the next year the garden didn't do very well. I was told by a crop expert that it lowered the PH in the soil.

I also know that wood chips or sawdust will suck the nitrogen right out of the soil. So don't put Horse manure in your garden if it contains wood shavings or chips.
 
(quoted from post at 14:41:26 11/14/13) Wood ashes contain lime no need to add lime.
Click to expand...

Then why is everybody around here me included, buying trailer loads and lime and spreading it or applying hundreds of tons of wood ash???? The crop experts tell us that when the soil is acid like it will get around here, the plants can't take up the nitrogen so they don't grow well unless you like golden rod and moss?????
 
Pellet stoves are great if you have money to burn and no time to cut wood. If you can cut wood you are by far money ahead.
I am a certified Harman Stove tech, but at $240 plus/ton, I can cut a LOT of wood. The adverage home here in the NE will consume 4-6 tons for suplemental heat in an average home plus the fuel consumed by the primary heating unit. Free standing Pellet stoves are area heaters, not central heating appliances. Central heating pellet furnaces/boilers will burn 6-10 ton of pellets anually here. I can cut a lot of firewood for that expense.
Loren, the Acg.
 
I believe the filler in fertilizer is pot ash so I think it might be ok but horse maure with shavings is great for a garden so long as it is composted, its even better mix with leaves then fully decomposed.
 
Pellets are 200.00 a ton here.At 76 Im tired of cutting wood.My son was in an auto accident and uses a walker.He cant bring wood from his wood shed to his wood box.He has wood heat,no oil.He can get wood into the stove.Keeping chimneys clean is a problem.A lot of people have switched to a pellet stove.My daughters house uses a bag of pellets a day,2 in real cold weather.They used no oil last winter.Ive spent just 2 winters in a house without wood heat.Green firewood is 210.00 a cord here.I have plenty of wood growing and I like working in the woods but I cant spend the hours cutting wood like I used to_Old age will change your view of wood cutting.
 
(quoted from post at 19:32:57 11/14/13) I had a bon fire in my garden area one year and the next year the garden didn't do very well. I was told by a crop expert that it lowered the PH in the soil.

I also know that wood chips or sawdust will suck the nitrogen right out of the soil. So don't put Horse manure in your garden if it contains wood shavings or chips.
Click to expand...

If you have too big a fire you sterilize the soil under the fire and burn the microbes, bacteria, organic matter, etc out of it to a certain depth. A surface fire works different, or spreading ashes. And yes, it would lower the Ph, same as lime does. All things in moderation!

Any type of bedding "sucks" the nitrogen as it decomposes. The larger and coarser/woodier the material, the more it takes to break it down. But that material is the organic matter that makes you soils more friable too and helps hold moisture. It's a trade off. All things in moderation!
 
big daddy t,
That's exactly what we found out.Works great in our garden,since we couldn't find cow manure without paying an exorbinate price for it.Composted horse manure,with shredded leaves works for us.The wood chips seem to hold moisture while its composting.We made a mistake one year in our old garden,by cutting elm logs next to the garden,wouldn't grow weeds in that patch for a couple of years.
LOU
 
(quoted from post at 22:48:59 11/14/13) I believe the filler in fertilizer is pot ash so I think it might be ok but horse maure with shavings is great for a garden so long as it is composted, its even better mix with leaves then fully decomposed.
Click to expand...

To the best of my knowledge the filler is lime. Your basic 3 ingredients N,P,&K are nitrogen phosphorous and Potash, respectively. Those are the ones that you are spending your money on, and they are what the three numbers as in 30-20-10 represent so the above would add up to 60% and the other 40 % would be filler. Now if you want to just kick your alfalfa you will get straight K with a few little additives. If you want to kick your grass you get straight N or urea. For general health you get a mix like 20-10-10.
 
Spreading lime without taking PH tests is a waste.Depends on the crops needs.Look at the post on using wood ash on fields.
 
That means you have plenty of lime in the soil.Ashes should not be put in one spot,spread where crops that need lime are grown.Potatoes get scabby if too much lime is present.
 
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