fireplace wood ashes

Wood Fireplace Ashes for Your Vegetable Garden

Dan This Land of Ours

fireplace wood ashesWith Winter coming to a close, the constant use of the fireplace is over. Time to clean it out. Cathy Isom fills you in about how the wood ashes in your fireplace can help your garden. That’s coming up on This Land of Ours.

When cleaning out the wood stove or fireplace in your home, consider using the ashes left behind from your wood burning as a compost for your garden or lawn. Wood ash will help soil rejuvenate, and adding it at the right time can give nutrient boosts that provide better harvests. Wood ash contains no nitrogen, which is the fuel of the garden. But, it does have plenty of soil additives, that are essential for healthy plants.

Wood ash can work great around the bases of trees, especially hardwood trees or fruit trees. When fruiting plants begin to flower, it will provide them with a boost of potassium that’ll increase crop quality, especially with tomatoes. If garden soil is acidic, it’s good to add a little wood ash to help with pH level and add nutrients. Only a light dusting is required when spreading it out in the garden.

Just make sure that ash is strictly made from real wood. We would never want to put the scraps of those briquettes from the bbq or the fake starter logs that contain chemicals.

I’m Cathy Isom…