Uses for Wood Ash

After discovering the diverse array of uses for wood ash I've lived 33 years not knowing, I had to share my list. Please feel free to add to it!

It's exciting to be in the information age, where I can connect with my ancestry of Danish, Northern German, & unknown, in unexpected ways -the internet! (since my family doesn't talk about our traditional heritage)
It's looking like ash was a magic ingredient in the recipe for life back in the day, probably even less than two generations ago.


I'm curious to try some of these uses, and explore uses for other types of ash too. Please comment if you know of any uses for ash from other materials.



Pest Control:
There are tons of ways to use ash for pest control. One way is to control the numbers within your garden area, and regularly apply a border of ash around the perimeter. They don't like to cross it if it touches them.

Path Making/ Weed Control:
You can apply it a little heavier in areas you don't want anything to grow, but careful not to put too much because it can leach (especially downhill) through the soil or runoff onto plants that you do want to grow.

Potash:
Boil down the ash to make potash. It makes a good source of phosphorous, magnesium, aluminum, potassium, and calcium. Use very lightly (like a spice or seasoning) onto soil or compost pile. May need to rebalance the pH with acidic ingredients for certain plants.

Fertilizer:
Adding urine to the ash to balance the pH, or add urine to the bed or compost pile where ash has been spread. Dilute the urine with water if you are planting into the bed soon. Tomatoes love wood ash and urine.

Natural Building:
An ingredient in cob, adobe, or plasters as a binding and strengthening agent, similar to the properties of concrete. Adding wood ash to lime mortar makes it harder and more waterproof.

Mild Leavening Agent in Baking:
One teaspoon of ash water should have the same leavening power as about 1/46 teaspoon of baking soda. You could make Pearlash for a stronger version.

https://www.historyquester.com/potash-pearlash-and-pancakes/

Hide Tanning:
Wood ash and urine are used in the tanning process of hides - to strip the hair and soften the leather.

Cleaning Agent, Degreaser, Polisher:
Mix ash with water and it becomes an abrasive degreaser cleaning scrub like fast orange, but careful bc it strips the oil from your skin with direct contact. Polishes glass and metals.


Dessicant/ Moisture & Odor Control:
Absorbs moisture and smells from the environment it is kept in

Other Uses:

Food Preservation

Seed Preservation

Soap Making

Tire Traction in Ice & Snow



~Marlo Blythe

Hi Marlo, Thanks for sharing this.
I’ve used wood ash in my garden and with my quails, and it works really well! I sprinkle a little ash in my quail bedding to help keep fleas and mites away. It’s a natural way to make sure they stay comfortable. I’ve also mixed ash with water to make a spray for my plants. When I had a problem with aphids on my tomatoes, this DIY insecticide helped protect them without any harmful chemicals. Yes it’s a very simple, very very safe solution for both animals and garden!

My favorite suggestion for wood ash is to put it on driveways as to melt the snow and ice away:

https://permies.com/t/100714/Wood-ash-melting-ice

One of my more interesting uses is hardwood ashes as a leavening agent. Wood ashes are alkaline (and why they're a good additive to acid soil) and when combined with a kitchen acid (like vinegar) will create the carbon dioxide bubbles needed to leaven quick breads. I experimented several years ago, and worked out a recipe that makes good biscuits.



Leavening agents: hardwood ash and vinegar

The proportions here are for drop biscuits. For a rolled and cut biscuit, decrease milk to 1/2 cup.

2 C flour
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp dry sifted hardwood ash
1/2 C lard
2/3 C milk or enough for proper consistency
2 tsp vinegar

Mix flour, salt and ash. Cut in lard, then stir in the milk and vinegar. Mix with a fork. Bake at 425°F (220°C) for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown. Note: These don't rise quite as much as baking powder biscuits.

When I asked my husband to sample them, I didn't tell him the ingredients. He thought they were very good.

One use for wood ash is to make ash lye and use it for leaching bad or unpalatable substances out of certain wild foods.

I've leached Bryoria lichens, which are unpalatable and potentially unhealthy when raw. When leached they are mainly carbohydrate (lichen starch). Doesn't taste much, but works okay as a bread additive, as long as you don't mind the bread turning blackish. There seems to be some debate over whether lichen starch can actually be digested by humans, but some things I've read seem to imply that it can. One thing to look out for, though, is that apparently some Bryoria lichens can contain vulpinic acid, which is toxic. Not sure if the lye leaching gets rid of it or not.

You can also use lye leaching on other edible lichens (Cetraria islandica for instance) and on certain plant foods, though I haven't tried this myself.

A goodly bit of our ash goes into the garden, and it's made my root veggies bigger than they ever were living in the city (where wood ash was a special limited substance)

But my favorite use is to nixtimelize corn! I make lye and soak good flint corn that we buy from a the Ute Mountain ag co-op, and it becomes the best posole you've ever eaten in your life! (Not to mention corn bread, tamale pie, tortillas etc)

I'll take advantage of wood ash and place it in my chickens dust bathing area. Ash is useful in keeping down mites and lice from bothering the hens. I also believe ash has some anti-bacterial properties so it helps keep the hen's clean in a sense.

(Wood ash + husky poop + red wigglers) x 5 years = (2 m x 20 m rugosa rose dense hedge), facilitating a pants-free front yard.  ;)