Introducing the Waste Not Wood Ash workshop series where the Living Web Farms biochar crew takes a deep dive into understanding applications for one of our most common everyday waste products. As we deal with ashes from the last wood stove season and prepare for the next, discover practical everyday uses for wood ashes you can use year-round. We’ll also explore the science of how and why wood ashes work in the garden, as an ingredient for natural soap making, or even as an ingredient in natural building materials. In part 2, Dan starts with some of his favorite homestead applications of wood ash.
If you have more clever ideas about how you use wood ashes around the farm and homestead, please share them in the comments below.
Dan also wrote a detailed post about wood ash in the Living Web Farms blog you can read here.
https://livingwebfarms.org/waste-not-wood-ashes/
You can also find the handout for the workshop on our website here.
http://livingwebfarms.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Wood-Ashes-handout.pdf
Cool! Been waiting for this one 🙂
thank you so much for all you do and keep pumping the info out our world is relying on YOU
As ice melt, calcium carbonate works much better than sodium chloride and I imagine it is less environmentally problematic, but it also rots away concrete a good deal faster than "regular" salt does.
On a homestead that's not a huge deal, but it's something municipalities have to take into consideration. Re-surfacing concrete steps every couple/few years is one thing, but when we're talking about multi-million-dollar road projects, that's quite another thing… They use sodium chloride (regular "rock salt" or "salt brine") in part because it's among the least destructive (to the roadways etc) chemicals that actually works for that purpose.
in our region in Mexico, we use lime for the nixtamal. I curious about using the ash and see the difference.
Very helpful info, thanks for sharing!
Where is the part 3 ..?
Wood ashes fat and water make lye which is used commercially to make hominy, etc.
It's worth mentioning, if you want ash for gardening, it's best to create it by burning as many different species of plants as possible and all their different parts (branches, bark, leaves etc.). This should give a better nutrient balance.
If you are specifically looking to make potash for food, cement, lye, saltpeter etc, it's best to only burn hardwood. Large center chuncks of aged hardwood contain the most potassium.