What about ashes in the Compost?

[gixxerific]

I know you should be careful not to add too many wood ashes to the actual garden but what about the compost pile. I Burn a lot in the winter and will probably throw them in the compost if there is not a problem with that. I will be adding other stuff as well all winter, coffee grounds, kitchen scraps etc.

[Charlie MV]

Unless you are adding huge amounts of ash, I think it's fine. You don't want ashes from treated lumber or other carcinogens I'd use everything you can pull from the yard. We've never added the ash to the compost pile but we do a few yard trash burns a year right in the garden area and just plow it in in the spring.

We don't burn what we can compost but we've given up on composting sticky things like holly leaves and chestnut hulls. I don't even like touching those chestnut thingys and it give me pleasure to burn the sticky vicious things.

[gixxerific]

I'm not talking about yard waste ashes. I'm talking about my fireplace ashes all winter long being added.

[rainbowgardener]

Hey gixx... try the Search the Forum thingy, there was a whole thread on this not too long ago.

I do put wood ashes on my compost pile, but it's because we have fires pretty infrequently, so we don't have a lot of ash relative to size of pile. Ash is quite alkaline, if you have very much of it, you will raise the pH of your compost. If you were considering liming your soil anyway, that wouldn't be a bad thing. Otherwise you need to be careful with it.

Coffee grounds tend to be acidic, so if you collect those Starbucks coffee grounds and mix it with your wood ash it would all balance out pretty well.

[cynthia_h]

Said Search function shows that the recent discussion was at:

http://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/v ... hp?p=98060

Cynthia

[gixxerific]

Thanks Cynthia and Rainbow.

I was in that thread just didn't remember it having anything to do with compost over garden implications. I just added another trash bag or 2 of coffee grounds today though so that helps. I will lime the garden in the spring so I'm going to keep adding the ashes unless it looks to be overwhelming to me. I will also spread them in the yard lightly. Like I said We burn a LOT in the winter so there will be tons of ashes and I don't want to throw them away. I have to find somewhere to put them.

Thanks all

[Sage Hermit]

-Do not add ash with nitrogen fertilizers such as ammonium sulfate (21-0-0-24S), urea (46-0-0) or ammonium nitrate (34-0-0). These fertilizers produce ammonia gas when placed in contact with high pH materials such as wood ash.

[SkyKero]

I have just started my composting and a lot of my greens ARE from coffee grounds -- if I cannot get ashes (no fireplace -- but looking into a chimenea ) --- what can I do to change the PH of my compost?

I think I know what I will ask for for Christmas a soil ph measure thing!

Silvia

[applestar]

As part of compostable kitchen scraps, eggshells would help raise pH and add calcium and nitrogen. It also adds phosphorus and sulfur (Hm? I know, studies show egg shells raise pH, but sulfur lowers pH doesn't it.... I wonder....) I also add any seashells.

In terms of outside sources, I still have some of the 50 Lb. bag of ground oystershells (for chicken grit) that I bought from a feed store for something like $10, which I add to a soil mix for pH adjustment and good drainage. And, of course, ground lime or dolomitic lime is the usual garden staple for raising pH. I believe granite dust also raises pH.

[2cents]

Gix.......If you are slow composting the ashes shouldn't be an issue.
Dad heated with wood/coal for 30 years.......all of the ashes went into the garden, compost or to fill small holes in the yard. There was never an issue with this nor was the PH being too high.
If you want the hot compost...the volume of ashes created from a wood burner can smoother the oxygen needed for hot composting.

[Homesteader]

We have a somewhat acidic soil here and so I do add our winter wood ash to the garden as well as using it in our compost. We have a large garden [8500 sq. ft.] and so the ash in not very concentrated. Have had no adverse effects after two years of doing this, in fact quite the opposite the garden has produced better each season. I will test this coming season for PH before adding more.
Coffee grounds lose most of the acid in the brewing so there isn`t a lot to be concerned with in the compost pile. Also coffee grounds are great for vermicomposting as the worms love them.
It has been noted that after a forest fire the normal undergrowth takes on a big spurt of growth, so I don`t think judicious use of good clean woodash will do harm.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Fire and burning do return fertility to woodland soils, but that ecosystem tends towards acidity anyway. It is a fungal system, and fungi exude organic acids as waste

Calcium acts as a buffer to allow higher pH, but how do we get it there? The egshells don't actually raise the pH themselves; as noted they bring sulphur to the game (you know, that egg-salad smell? )So what does?

Bacterial systems tend to be base (high pH). They even tend to buffer with the calcium coats they put on in dormant situations and develop many members quickly, all exuding alkaline glues to stick themselves in place, and alkaline is the up direction on the pH scale...

What makes a soil more likely to be akaline or acid? Maybe it's not a function of the nutrients at all. MAYBE it's the biology. MAYBE that 's more about carbon to nitrogen, fungal to bacterial ratios, than it is about N,P,K, pH. MAYBE we fool ourselves thinking we know enough about this to do better than Nature can. Maybe...

Maybe we overthink nutrients and pH. Perhaps we should worry more about keeping our soil alive and balanced in such a way that both soil and plant thrive. Compost doesn't EVER need pH balancing if you have a good diverse culture and a good fungal to bacterial ratio. Our planet's oxygen levels have stayed at 28 parts per million ever since that little hiccup in the Carboniferous Era that gave us coal, oil and gas. This planet self regulates to perfection when we let it, and when we work with the systems in place. Ash and charcoal are soil amendments since time began, anhydrous ammonia and ammonia salts, not so much. Keep your biologies right, and the rest is a moot point.

Carbon to nitrogen, fungal to bacteria...

Compost, compost, compost...

HG

[gixxerific]

Great reply HG!

I myself have never gotten carried away with pH levels, I never even checked mine. I just kept adding more goodies for the ground whatever that may be. I do usually add lime in the spring cause I would rather be low than high in the acidic levels.

[rainbowgardener]

I myself have never gotten carried away with pH levels, I never even checked mine. I just kept adding more goodies for the ground whatever that may be. I do usually add lime in the spring cause I would rather be low than high in the acidic levels.

not sure this makes sense ... adding lime raises pH, which does make it lower acid, also known as sweeter or more basic. Most plants (there are exceptions of course) tend to like soils a bit on the acid side of neutral.

[The Helpful Gardener]

RBG is right, Gixx. Acidity is not really the issue (I'll explain in a minute), so adding lime without a pH check is just silly (done the whole country over by millions, I know, but silly, just the same).

When I get soil tests done that show not just all the nutrients in the soil (Melich III test ) but the nutrients made available by weak acid reactions (by biology in the soil, i.e., organic methods, found by a Melich I test) I usually find PLENTY of calcium in the soil, but not in a plant available form. It get's locked up in the soil, taking up valuable space that could be storing nutrients (known as the Cation Exchange Capacity, or CEC), and most people's answer is to dump on more lime (that won't get stored becuase the CEC is already full). Soyou get a low pH reading, so you add lime, which doesn't stick around or locks up, so you get a low pH, so you add lime, which doesn't stick around or locks up, so you add lime...

Creating a weak acid response is often as easy as getting more fungal activity, therefore more acids into the soil. Sounds completely counterintuitive, cuz it is, but you can often make your acidic soil balance out by creating weak acid responses. Dr. Ingham talks about just such a case, where a Californa farmer had for 30 years, sent in his soil sample and for thirty years, the extension service told him to add TONS of lime per acre. Every year he came up with pH's nearly to four, and every year, the same recommendation. By adding wood based (therefore fungal, therefore acidic) compost, in two years Dr, Ingham had this guy's soil back near seven (neutral).

But she wouldn't have done that without knowing what the current soil chemistrys were, so not testing is also silly. Can't tell the players without a scorecard... Soil testing is the baseline to figure out what is going on in your soil, and I have given you some tips tpo figure out just what is going on (comparing Total Nutrients against Plant Available Nutrients is a good start to figuring things out). Professional help may be required to assess this information, but it could well be the difference between the right thing and the wrong thing, so valuable nonetheless...

HG

HG