Quote:
Originally Posted by shule1
I've also found that adding extra nitrogen (I used a combination of ammonium sulfate and urea) helps plants that have too much wood ash.
If you had a big pile of wood ash in a spot, and move it, you can count on the soil where it was needing some peat moss, nitrogen and/or such, since it seeps into the soil, especially when it rains.
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Three handfuls per plant sounds like a huge amount to me!
I did not have good results experimenting last year with a much smaller amount of wood ash in my container soil - maybe a small handful over 2 X 3 ft for two tomato plants. Won't do that again. Messing with pH does not help the plants to get their nutrients, including potassium which was the input I hoped for... OTOH, everybody's soil is different, nothing burnt seems at all helpful here.
IMO (at least for my area with acid soil and lots of rain) the best way to deal with a surplus of wood ash is to add it to the compost for the potassium, let the pH issues work themselves out in the organic matter pile before you apply it to plants. This is what I used to do when I burned wood for heat, and the compost ate it up and seemed to be neutral anyway by the time it was done.
