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It's snowing ash

 
gardener
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I am one of the lucky people in California.  The fires are close enough to make breathing difficult and it looks like it is snowing ash, but my family and home are safe, so I'm not complaining, a lot of people have it much worse.  I haven't been spending much time outside, but today I had to water my garden.  In the evening I sprayed the ash off of the plants.  It's not tons of ash, but there is a light dusting on everything.  I know some people use ash in there garden, I never have, it always seemed a bit risky to me.  Do I need to do anything to counter act the ash?  I can't afford to have my soil tested, so I don't know what the ph is. I'm looking forward to your thoughts.  If you are a person in the fire zone, know my thoughts and best wishes are with you.   Thanks
 
pollinator
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Rinsing it off the leaves should be plenty. A light dusting won't be enought to alter much in the soil but it is a nice contribution of potassium and carbon. We've been getting snowed on too, I've been too busy to even rinse my garden but things looked fairly happy when o glanced at them earlier
 
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You may want to check the surface of the leaves every day for ash build up. Too thick of a layer can prevent photosynthesis from occurring. Just rinsing the leaves ought to be enough to prevent that problem. After Mt. St. Hellens blew, many a tree died due to a lack of photosynthesis. Of course, that was a much heavier load of ash!
 
Jen Fulkerson
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Thank you both, I will just rinse the leaves off once a week or so.  
I grew up in Everett Washington.  The ash I'm getting here is nothing compared to what we got when My Saint Helens blew.  I was a kid, but remember the thick blanket of ash that covered everything.  
Thanks again, happy gardening.
 
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The ash is just rockdust, which is perfectly fine to add to your garden.
They can be a bit too bio-available aka caustic, but with it only having a light layer of ash, I think you soil will be fine.

If in doubt, you can give them extra watering to leach it down into the soil column thus diluting it to super safe levels.
 
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