Wood Ashes in the Winter Garden

I have a good supply of wood ashes from heating our home with a woodburner so I try to find ways to use them around the farm. One way to use some wood ash is in the garden.

First, don't just indiscriminately use them as they will harm some acid-loving plants like raspberries and blueberries, potatoes, tomatoes etc... . However they are helpful for some plants, especially those that like a neutral or slightly basic soil.

Also, I only use wood ashes. No garbage or coal or whatever. My wood is what my son cuts and splits on our property, so I know what it is and where it comes from.

The way that I distribute the ashes is I just pull our ash pan out of the wood burner, and let it cool down somewhere for a while. Then I walk out to the row or spot that I want the ashes, and I just tip it as I walk along to make a fairly even coating of ash. Sometimes I dump a pan or several pans depending on what plant I am taking care of. Make sure you know which way the wind blows when doing this.

I always add wood ashes to the spot in the garden in which I am going to plant my sweet peas. I coat the ground with the ashes after I till it and then just let them soak in for a few weeks or days depending on the weather. I used to have trouble with peas because our soil is naturally acidic, but an Amish friend of mine told me about using wood ashes years ago, and since then I've always had nice crops of peas if the rabbits don't get them.

I put ashes around my rhubarb plants each winter or spring. I just spread them around the crowns, where you can see the plant coming up. I never cover the plant. I spread it around fairly thickly. I also add some cow manure later on to the rhubarb.

Asparagus beds also benefit from the ashes. I spread them around the beds like I do with the peas, not real thickly. I also put some cow manure down for the asparagus.

I put some ashes between the rows in my strawberries. I don't put them on top of the plants. I also put leaves between the rows on top of the ashes after the ashes have washed into the soil a bit. I usually don't completely cover the strawberries with the leaves, but I really heap the leaves up around them.

The last place I use them is around the black walnut tree. I just dump out the ash pans around the tree within the drip line of the branches. I don't pay much attention to amount with the walnut trees because they are large and can take a lot of the ashes. I don't coat the whole ground around them, but I probably put 5 to 10 pans of ash around a large tree throughout the course of the winter.

Well I am going to end here. I have to provide taxi service for one of my children in a few minutes. I'm trying to restart this blog, and this is the first post in a while.  I'm pretty busy so I expect the posts are going to be a bit shorter, but hopefully they will still be worth reading.
Jim