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Re: Wood ashes?

OK, group.

I am going to stick my face in the door, and tell a short story about wood
ashes.

Once upon a time, I was a grad student in horticulture.

For a semester or two, my half-time teaching assistantship was to "handle"
the unusual reports from soil tests that came in from home gardeners. 
Anything within "normal" ranges, the computer software handled almost
without human interaction.  But the way-out-of-sight readings, well, those
got personal attention.

The most common "unusual" garden soil test that we saw had extremely high
potassium (potash) levels.  And invariably, when you would get a call (or
get a written response) back from the gardener, you would learn that they
had a wood stove.  And had been applying wood ashes profusely to their
garden.  

Is this a problem?  Not really.  Not as long as you are in a climate where
you get adequate rainfall (potassium is very mobile and leaches out
quickly), or you are able to irrigate abundantly.  Not as long as you have
an abundance of organic matter in the soil to tie up some of the excess
potassium.  But if your soil dries out regularly, or if your OM is
relatively low, you can definitely run into "high salt" problems.  

I'm in the Northeast.  Acid soils.  Wood ashes are like lime, raising the
pH.  But the effect is "quicker" than most limestones, and adds potassium
(potash) more than calcium.  

The lesson to take home?  If you use wood ashes on your garden, get a good
soil test regularly.  The cost at most US land-grant colleges is under ten
dollars.  It's easy, it's quick, and it can save you a lot of gardening
grief.  

I recently moved into a new house.  The previous owners spread the wood
stove ashes on the lawn, and in the most convenient area (right outside the
family room).  How do I know?  I soil-tested the yard and garden after we
moved in, but did each section separately.  The lawn right outside the
family room has a high pH and extremely high potassium levels!  The grass
grows OK, but browns up quite quickly in the summer, much more quickly than
the same lawn grasses on the other side of the house.  Oh, and the pH and
potassium levels are "normal" range on that side.  

Rick Grazzini
rickg@centrelab.com
Centre Analytical Laboratories
USDA 5 or 6 / Sunset 43

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