[forest flame]

hi all
we burn briquettes and wood in our fire at home.i have added the ashes to the garden on occassion but am not sure whether this will change the ph or will it reduce the soils drainage.should i put it straight in the compost bin?
any advice would be greatly appreciated thanks

[Sive]

I have heard that wood ash is useful when planting your potatoes as I suppose it contains potash.

[medieval knievel]

wood ash is fine, as is turf ash; though i'd counsel against using turf ash in the sense that i'd counsel against using turf, on environmental grounds.

[walltoall]

Wood ash is all good in soil just needs to be mixed in well. Turf ash (my last addy was near Ferbane) has high quantities of inert organic material and needs really good mixing if you don't want it to cake your garden. When I was cleaning out the grate, I used to gently put a large shovel of sand (Doon is built on sand and surrounded by bog) into the ashes and trowel the mixture into a bucket.

THAT mix was then spread down a drill or similar in the garden depending on the time of year. I sometime added an odd bucket to my compost heap. If the wind was blowing, and blowing in the right direction I sometimes scattered the bucket ful to the winds and let it sort itself out

[forest flame]

great stuff thanks for the help one and all