Wood Ash Fertilizer

There are a lot of people that have home gardens and a lot of them think they will be able to use that skill in a situation if society has broken down. Unfortunately many of these gardeners will be hard pressed to get much production from their gardens when they are forced to grow plants without their usual assortments of fertilizers and poisons. Those big ripe tomatoes could end up being cherry tomatoes or nothing at all.

One of the most relied upon garden substances today is fertilizers. Fertilizers are what makes your garden green. To grow food without your local store bought fertilizers you will need to make do with what nature provides. One such fertilizer that should be in great supply is ashes.

Wood ash is an excellent source of potassium and trace elements, which is important. However, there is another benefit that wood ash provides that is even more important. And it isn't so much a nutrient as it is a soil pH adjuster. Wood ash acts like lime, raising the pH to make your soil less acidic. The more acidic the soil is the lower the soils pH.

Why is pH important? It is important because the pH of the soil affects the ability of the micro-nutrient to be absorbed by the plant. It does little good to add fertilizer to soil that has a really low pH. Lots of nutrients are useless if the plant can't absorb them. Acidic soils lock up the nutrients so the plants can't get them.

Wood ash has a very high pH and when mixed with soil it will raise the pH of the soil. In this way wood ash serves as a replacement for lime. Lime is more powerful than wood ash, but lime will be unavailable to the vast majority of people in SHTF situations.

It is best to use wood ash in small amounts when spreading it around growing plants. It is best to spread the ash over your garden prior to planting. Too much wood ash all at once can actually harm a plant. If you are growing the few acid loving plants such as blueberries it is best to avoid using ash around them altogether.

Composting ashes allows salt in the ash to be leached away by the rain, so add copious amounts of ash to your compost. I would think that all ash will be used in a survival situation. However, it is good to know that hardwood ash is superior to that of conifers so you can spread the good stuff where you need it the most.