Potash fires?

A friend of mine on Facebook told me I should start making 'potash fires' when I said I may try and get outside during the current warm spell and get started doing something in the garden. I asked her “What's that?“ and she replied:

You warm your ground by starting twig fires in your Spring garden plots, careful not to disturb the leaf piles where the babies are sleeping. Gives you both a generated thaw and potash for the soil.

She's a permie, but primarily lurks. And in case she's reading this, I'm not second-guessing or doubting your suggestion, I'm just curious about it from the perspective of others. Plus, I need to start getting some additional new threads going to complete my current Scavenger Hunt, but I don't want to just post any ol' thing, but rather something useful.

She mentioned it was a technique used by Native Americans (she's Indian, I forget what nation. Whoever is in Idaho.)

So, anyone ever used this? I am probably going to hold off, as the garden is kind of close to the house and that makes me nervous.

Well, warming the soil aids in germination. It's a question of whether the soil will stay warm. That's a question of the local climate. If the air stays consistently warm but the soil hasn't caught up yet, I can see the value.

As to ash/potash, an acidic soil will benefit quite a bit. Alkaline (basic) soil less so, and could push the pH farther in the wrong direction. Perhaps an ash/char mix might temper the effect?

Fire has been a regenerative method for ages. It releases minerals stored in the plants.

But does it really warm the soil too? I’ve never taken before and after soil temperature readings. So I don’t know. But having used fire for cooking, I’m aware the fire and heat goes UP. Under my wood stove is cool, not hot. So the heat doesn’t penetrate the ashes to go downward.

I would suspect that any soil heating would be quite transitory. The very next evening night temperatures would bring the soil temp back to where it was before the fire.

Just my guess. I’ve never experimented with this idea before.

In Australia, a lot of native plants only germinate after fire so we use fire or artificial smoke to start germination.  Bush fire is both destructive and restorative.  If fire is not required, then warm composting may be another solution.  Potash is fabulous for tomatoes and our ash from the winter fires does not go to waste plus we get a certain amount of biochar.  The use of fire is a great topic to study within the Permies environment.