Wood ash in the vegetable garden

Good to know. How much ash did you add to the garden?

Just keep in mind that ash is "poor man`s lime" not for all plants. That is unless you have lots of acid loving plants that you want to --kill off?

I used ash and pine needles for my potatoes this year and they turned out awsome.

north of 60 said:

I used ash and pine needles for my potatoes this year and they turned out awsome.

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Sounds like one working against the other and I'd bet the pine needles won out. I'd suggest you get a soil test to see what you have and then either put on the ash or pine needles, but for sure I'd bet on the ash. Pine needles might work okay around something like blueberries though.

We've always dumped all our ashes in the garden with good results. Never did a soil test but the soil around here is reported to be sweet...whatever that means.

pine needles won't make soil that acidic. Ash is a strong base, but it's short lived compared to most limes (burnt lime/quick lime are fats acting but short lived, pelletized/dolomitic limes- longer release). Ash also contains other nutrients like potassium (the K in NPK), calcium, etc. Use sparingly.

Lilacs love ash

I disagree on the pine needles. Don't believe it? Do a soil test with some soil under pine needles sometime.

savageactor7 said:

We've always dumped all our ashes in the garden with good results. Never did a soil test but the soil around here is reported to be sweet...whatever that means.

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Those ashes certainly won't do any harm to the garden unless they were spread maybe 3" deep or more, which I highly doubt would happen. I'm just saying that pine needles and ash, or lime do opposite things to the ground.

Sweet means good. Sour means it needs lime. (Old farmer talk there.)

Pine needles "straw" will make the soil acidic IF they are ground up and mixed into the soil in substantial quantities--depending upon the pH of the soil to begin with and how much pine straw is used. The needles thusly ground also make a great soil conditioner for almost any soil. BTW, pine trees will drop needles until the pH of the rain water filtering through them is to their liking and then needles stop dropping. Pine needles lying on top of the ground don't change the soil pH very much or very fast, but they appear to be essential to the health of the tree. So, you may not want to rake 'em up and throw 'em away, for your tree's benefit.

For those who don't know, "SWEET" refers to (alkaline or basic) soil which has a pH above 7 while "SOUR" (acid) soil has a pH below 7. Wood ashes have a very high pH (around 12.5 - 14 depending on the wood species; 14 is the top of the scale) and can really raise the pH, but IS shorter term, as mentioned. 'Course if you have an endless supply of ashes . . . !

Optimum pH range is 5.5--7.0 for most plants. Of course, others have different requirements. According to our soil scientists, 5.5 to 7.0 allows all the soil nutrients and beneficials, like iron and trace elements of all sorts, to become available to the plants, so that's what I shoot for. To put ashes into MY garden here in West Texas, where our soil is alkaline, would be homicide (or would that be HERBicide--no, that's something else, but you get the idea) but yours may be different. Most of you probably already know all this, but for those who may not, there it is. Further investigation into soil chemistry and structure is a most interesting way to spend a cold winter's day by the ol' stove. You may wish to contact your county ag agent for more details and local precision. They're there to help and can suggest the soil testing procedure, help you with it and interpret the results.

As Dennis points out, a soil test is the best and should be done BEFORE amendments are made. It will give you way more useful information than just pH, which is needed by gardeners for making the most of their resources. For example, I put three tons of horse barn stall cleanings (manure, wood chips, straw, etc.) into my garden that had been sitting in a pile out in the weather for 10 years. I was amazed when I got the soil test back after it had been mixed into my soil for 2 years--there was STILL 20,000 ppm of salt from the salt blocks the horses licked--after 10 years! So a soil test IS best! I should have sent the cleanings off for testing before I put 'em in my garden, so learn from my "experience". It's way easier to avoid problems like that than to remediate them. :red:

Y'all be good!

Lilacs love ash

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That is good to know. We always wondered what to put on our lilacs in order to make them grow better. They are on the edge of a pine forest and we suspect that is not good for them. In previous years we have always put lime (type for the lawn) on them. Should I do the ash instead for better results?

ScottF said:

Lilacs love ash

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That is good to know. We always wondered what to put on our lilacs in order to make them grow better. They are on the edge of a pine forest and we suspect that is not good for them. In previous years we have always put lime (type for the lawn) on them. Should I do the ash instead for better results?

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We had a lilac bush in the alley behind one of our homes here in Lubbock and it did well in unmodified soil, which is alkaline. Wood ashes may indeed do the trick for your bush. I'd suggest spreading the ashes on the ground a few inches inside and outside the dripline and wet 'em down thoroughly. How much? That's hard to say. Again, a soil test is in order. Agricultural lime, such as you mention, would be my preference, BUT the ashes are free, the lime won't be . . . ! If your lilac isn't doing well, you likely have acid soil, which can benefit from the addition of amendments which make it more basic (higher pH). Matter of fact, IF your soil is acid, you may be able to use the ashes in other areas to good effect.

Before you put ashes around your lilac, I'd suggest you try the following:
Put about two cups of fine ashes into a plastic container (such as an empty milk bottle with a screw cap) with 1 gallon of water. Stir them in and let 'em sit out in the shed for a couple of days. Stir or shake 'em every so often. This will make a very basic (pH 10 and above solution, which you should not get on anything you want to keep nice or yourself. You can test the pH with litmus strips available from most drugstores. It will be good to know what pH you're dealing with. After 4-5 days, shake 'em once more, test for pH, and pour a small amount (a cup or so) of the solution onto some small, out of the way places on your yard grass. If the grass is still actively growing, in a few days it will turn a dark shade of green, noticeably different from the surrounding grass AND be taller. If this is what happens, you can apply this solution to other (non-acid loving) plants and areas and they should really show a difference. If your results are consistent, you probably have acid soil, which I'm 99% sure of from what you say.

This is an old farmer's soil test that I learned long ago, and have used from time to time. The same can be done with vinegar solutions on grass in alkaline soil areas. The results can be dramatic! Do not use the solution on things like blueberries, unless your county agent endorses it. BBerries are an acid-soil loving plant and you don't want to tip that balance too far to the low end of the pH scale. Again, talk to your County Ag agent.

You can also buy Miracle-Gro "MirAcid" liquid fertilizer to test the pH situation, but then again you have to buy that! I'm kinda like McGiver--I like to use whatever is at hand--AND I'm Scottish and, therefore, "thrifty".

Now bear in mind that this is a pH experiment only. If other factors become involved, you may have different results. That's why you do this sort of thing in remote places AND why you do soil tests. This is fun stuff to do!

Does your lilac bloom more bluish or more pink? Let us know how it turns out.

This is where I got the info about pine needles. http://www.rainyriverrecord.com/node/4553 in case you guys are thinking Iam
loosing it. :roll: :lol:

I heard that wood ash is great for lawns. Anyone ever try it??

The situation was I posted a thread this spring in the green room about pine ash in the compost. It was all supportive about spreading it in the garden also. Which I did. When I ran into this article as I was trying to find out if you plant the taters with
eyes up or down, I noticed it recommend pine needles. Since my backyard is full of them I loaded the holes up with them. I had good results. No blemishes. It did say how lime does cancel each other out though. I guess as Sonny states it, ash is a poor mans lime. This would also make BackwoodSavages Quote of cancelling each other would be correct. Except that the site recommended acidic soil. So how do you like those POTATOES. Everyone has their ways and I say a GREEN thumbs UP to ya all for the input.
Anyone that makes it up this far Ill have a bag of midnight sun potatoes ready for ya. Of course with an exchange for a couple splits of that oak. If any leaves come with it I will put them into the garden too.
N of 60

north of 60 said:

The situation was I posted a thread this spring in the green room about pine ash in the compost. It was all supportive about spreading it in the garden also. Which I did. When I ran into this article as I was trying to find out if you plant the taters with
eyes up or down, I noticed it recommend pine needles. Since my backyard is full of them I loaded the holes up with them. I had good results. No blemishes. It did say how lime does cancel each other out though. I guess as Sonny states it, ash is a poor mans lime. This would also make BackwoodSavages Quote of cancelling each other would be correct. Except that the site recommended acidic soil. So how do you like those POTATOES. Everyone has their ways and I say a GREEN thumbs UP to ya all for the input.
Anyone that makes it up this far Ill have a bag of midnight sun potatoes ready for ya. Of course with an exchange for a couple splits of that oak. If any leaves come with it I will put them into the garden too.
N of 60

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Keep in mind that there are more varieties fo potatoes in this world than any other single category vegetable. With a bit of research, and checking with your equivalent of a county ag agent, you may find a variety that suits your climate and soil to a "P" (or is that "T"?) I harvested red skin "new?" potatoes from a garden on a farm that was on blackland (clay and very alkaline) and they were great. As with most underground developing vegetables, they will benefit from loose soil and pH more to the acidic side. Finely chopped pine straw is a good soil conditioner and pH lowering agent for almost all soils above pH 7 and I use 'em every chance I get EXCEPT I don't take 'em from under trees in my yard for reasons stated earlier.

Oh, one other thought--If you have a gardening club (not principally flower raisers) that frequently try cultivars--which are special plant varieties they "test" grow and report on to the club--you might want to check with them. If they are mostly seniors, they will be a source of experience that not even your county ag agent can match. That's the way it was in Austin (Texas). The county agent was/is a member of the club and told me several times privately that he was continually amazed by what the elders knew from experience, that worked, that he had never heard of in his classes. In fact, he was compiling those experiences into a book to be added to the curriculum at A & M. The ashes in water thing I mentioned earlier was from one of the old farmers in the Grapevine area, which was included in the book after the ag agenttried it and found it worked. It's amazing what you can learn from the old timers if y'listen to 'em.

AGREED!

I was surprised when I learned that ash from fires can also have a lot of TOXINS. OBVIOUSLY if you burn any treated wood, but also toxins are left behind from newspaper ink (if you're using that to start your fires). Particularly colored ink, black not so bad. Just use common sense when using the ash for veggies!

[quote author="Texas boy" date="1220042339"]Pine needles "straw" will make the soil acidic IF they are ground up and mixed into the soil in substantial quantities--depending upon the pH of the soil to begin with and how much pine straw is used. quote]

When folks talk about testing the soil under a pine tree- it's often mostly pine needles in various states of decay. Thus the "substantial quantities" above.

On lilacs- they don't mind an alkaline soil, and the potassium in the ash encourages blossoms.

I use the ashes in the garden and till them in, I dump them there over winter. I wouldn't use them sparingly. I dumped a 5 gallon pail by my sunflower plot and not even weeds grew there for one season. I also like to use them on my steep gravel driveway, when it's icy.