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Wood stove ashes

Started by boilerhouse47, June 29, 2005, 12:47:09 PM

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boilerhouse47

I've been burning wood for 3 years now and I am getting a pretty big pile of ashes. What does everybody do to get rid of there ashes that doesn't hurt the enviroment?
                        Boiler

PS. I tried dumping them down the wood chuck holes on my property, but the chucks just push them back out. 8)
Just like to cut fire wood!!

karl

I usually spread them on the icy drive for traction and on the backfield (rainy days keep ashes from bowing around)

I am assuming here that you are not burning old painted lumber or treated, etc.
"I ask for wisdom and strength, Not to be superior to my brothers, but to be able to fight my greatest enemy, myself"  - from Ojibwa Prayer.

Patty

We throw ours onto the garden or the fields throughout the winter. No harm done.
Women are Angels.
And when someone breaks our wings....
We simply continue to fly ........
on a broomstick.....
We are flexible like that.

Buzz-sawyer

Place them in a wood/plastic tub...........allow rain to wash through...save lye for making BIODIESEL and soap :)
    HEAR THAT BLADE SING!

MULE_MAN

I always did the same as kari  I would save them for the drive way
works real good for Traction on a hill & helps melt the ice.
If I ever had any left. I also put them on the garden like Patty mention
Wood-Mizer LT40HDG25 with Simple Setworks, debatker, 580 CASE backhoe

Weekend_Sawyer


I spread a little around the front yard plants and trees every time I clean the fireplace and woodstoves, then the rest gets brodcast in the garden. I beleive it is good for the plants. I do not burn plastics because I heard that was bad to put burned plastic ashes in a garden. Bad for the mamals that eat out of the garden, in my case that's deer woodchucks, rabbits, squirls, my nieghbors and even me! :)
Imagine, Me a Tree Farmer.
Jon, Appalachian American Wannabe.

Gunny

We've always spread them right on top of our garden areas--they "sweeten" up the soil as the rains wash them in, especially when in very close proximity to pines of any kind.  I think they do away with cutworms, too, if not mistaken (only time we've ever had cutworms is when we brought in soil from elsewhere or worked up a fresh patch).  

Ron Wenrich

I throw mine on top of the compost pile, then mix it in.  Wood ash is high in potash.  Good for plants.  That's why slash and burn agriculture works, until the soil is depeleted. 

I know of one guy that was burning his air tight too low.  He was getting big amounts of creosote coming out of his chimney.  He figured since wood ashes were good for his plants, then creosote would be good for his trees.  They both came from the stove.  Killed all his trees.   :D
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Woodcarver

Ashes from the firepot = potash (potassium).  That is apparently the origin of the term potash for potassium fertilizer. 
Just an old dog learning new tricks.......Woodcarver

Ernie

They sure make the roses bloom well
A very wise man once told me . Grand children are great, we should have had them first

woodmills1

sawdust + wood ash + manure (or compost) would make a great fertilizer.

but no creasote or ash from coal.
James Mills,Lovely wife,collect old tools,vacuuming fool,36 bdft/hr,oak paper cutter,ebonic yooper rapper nauga seller, Blue Ox? its not fast, 2 cat family, LT70,edger, 375 bd ft/hr, we like Bob,free heat,no oil 12 years,big splitter, baked stuffed lobster, still cuttin the logs dere IAM

pappy

We spread em out around our lilacs and rose bushes... we also keep a bucket in the privy "outback" and like the sign says on the door "If you tinkle and a sprinkle and if you poop and a scoop"... helps with the smell and also breaks down the pile... 
"And if we live, we shall go again, for the enchantment which falls upon those who have gone into the woodland is never broken."

"Down the Allagash."  by; Henry Withee

OneWithWood

The ashes from our central boiler unit and from the woodstove in the workshop go into our compost pile.  Makes for some wonderful soil.
One With Wood
LT40HDG25, Woodmizer DH4000 Kiln

bull

Lawn,Garden,and compost pile !!  Never have enough

boilerhouse47

Thanks to everyone! You learn something new every day. The lumps that look like charcoal, can they be spead by the plants or should I sift them out? Karl, there is nothing burned in my stove but hard wood and an occasional chunk of pine like 2 + 4's cut into kindling.
             boiler  ;D
Just like to cut fire wood!!

SwampDonkey

I throw charcoal and all, right on the garden.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Tom

I heard that it causes a garden to grow rocks.  :D :D

SwampDonkey

Tom,

Sure seems to promote gravel and cobble. :D
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

boilerhouse47

Tom, when I was a kid ( many, many years ago) my Grandmother had a ROCK garden, maybe she used lumpy ashes and I just never understud how she was growing them!!
                                             Boiler smiley_jester
Just like to cut fire wood!!

Robert_in_W._Mi.

  Here on the farm we grow veggies, and i save all the discarted bones left from processing the deer we get every season.  In the winter i burn them in my wood stove that's in the shop.  The ashes that come from the stove then also have "bone meal" in them.  This is very good for plants and along with the pot-ash really gives plants "another" thing they need.

  We have been doing this for many many years, and NO they do not stink when i throw them in a hot fire along with the wood that i burn.

  Robert

woodmills1

now rocks I got ifin they be caused by lumps I don't know. :D
James Mills,Lovely wife,collect old tools,vacuuming fool,36 bdft/hr,oak paper cutter,ebonic yooper rapper nauga seller, Blue Ox? its not fast, 2 cat family, LT70,edger, 375 bd ft/hr, we like Bob,free heat,no oil 12 years,big splitter, baked stuffed lobster, still cuttin the logs dere IAM

Robert R

If you have water-holding clay soil low spots in your yard or fields, sprinkled liberally it will cause the soil particles that cling together in the clay to separate and improve drainage.  I have used this to make hog wallers go away with pretty good success.
chaplain robert
little farm/BIG GOD

SwampDonkey

woodmills,

You knew we was just kid'n, right ??? :D
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

woodmills1

I swear somthin makes em grow round here :o
James Mills,Lovely wife,collect old tools,vacuuming fool,36 bdft/hr,oak paper cutter,ebonic yooper rapper nauga seller, Blue Ox? its not fast, 2 cat family, LT70,edger, 375 bd ft/hr, we like Bob,free heat,no oil 12 years,big splitter, baked stuffed lobster, still cuttin the logs dere IAM

rpg52

If you stay in the same area for years, it's possible to over-do the ashes in a garden.  (Depending on the size of your garden and your climate, potassium accumulates in soils.)  I still use some in my garden, but I take much of it back out and spread it in the forest where it came from.  I also burn all my poultry bones in for the extra calcium and phosphorus.  Seems like the main thing is to not put metals or plastics in them so that natural processes can recycle them back into plants again.
Ray
Belsaw circle mill, in progress.

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