ashes in new bed

what about adding ashes from wood stove when filling the bed? Just filling my first bed and have extra ashes just not sure if I should add or not

Thanks
Kragh

I do. It's obviously going to depend on your baseline pH -- you don't want to add to much if you are tending to alkaline already. Since my soil is neutral to slightly acidic I don't seem to have a problem. For many potassium-loving crops I'll work wood ash into the row at planting time. It's made a huge difference for my peppers, for example.

See attachment for a general guideline for adding wood ashes to gardening soils:

If you sow little seeds afterwards, be aware that wood ash can act as a anti germinative.

So my observation is that any amount I've used has been ok, but then I've never have all that much relative to the scale I'm using it at.

Apparently though, it takes a lot of ash to raise pH. This extension bulletin suggests 1 point increase at 10-11 tons per acre: https://extension.umaine.edu/publications/2279e/  (see figure 3)

That's a lot more than I would have thought. I'd guess I'm using the equivalent of 1/2 a ton per acre at most. Theoretically that should only affect pH sensitive crops like spinach. But on the other hand, if your soil pH is already acidic you may want to use quite a bit.