Dave Meesters

Travis Johnson wrote:Ash has two potential uses in the garden.

1) The first is that it acts as a sort of lime, and increases the PH in the soil. We use wood ash here as a lime substitute on a large farming basis for that reason.

2) The second use is as a weak fertilizer, keeping in mind it is a VERY weak fertilizer. On the NPK scale it has an equivalent of 1/2/3. Of the 3 major nutrients, a gardener or farmer is most likely low on the first one, nitrogen, and that is where urine is the highest. So by using urine with wood ash, you get a higher amount of nitrogen, with some higher amounts of potash, that increases the PH in the soil.

It is a win/win/win

When you say "using urine with wood ash" are you referring to mixing them together before use?  If so, any thoughts, experience, or resources about technique?  This is what I'm most interested in--methods of combining the two. But there's more than one way to go about it obviously, and questions come to mind. For instance, if you mix urine with wood ash the now you have clumpy wood ash, not the best for spreading evenly. Does it make sense then to dry it out first before application? This is what I'm pondering.

If you just mean using urine and also using wood ash, but not mixing them, then the methods are pretty clear. I'm more interested in the former though.


Dave

Priscilla Stilwell wrote:I made some (mostly) wood ash yesterday. Went around and picked up twigs from our thorny hardwood trees, broke them up and shoved them in a tomato paste can from the cafeteria. Poked vent holes in the bottom, put a couple pieces of cardboard and dried sugar-cane scraps in the middle and lit them on fire. It burned and then smoldered for several hours and left me this morning with a nice little bit of ash.

I wanted to use ash as an additive to my gardens, but I'm curious how others use it. I've read studies where urine (my primary fertilizer) mixed with ash has better results. But I didn't see how the combination was made.

I plan to sprinkle a bit around some of my flowering trees and plants, and put some in my "super-sawdust" (https://permies.com/t/121746/charging-sawdust). But past that, I'm curious how else I can use this source of fertility.

Also, and very important, how much is too much?

Priscilla, do you remember where you read about urine and wood ash mixed together?  I'm also trying to learn about the possibilities of these two sources of fertility that we have in abundance.  I've heard a bit about mixing the two, but haven't been able to find much in writing.

My latest project is experimenting with ways to preserve at least some of the fertility of urine that is produced during the winter months when (here in the temperate zone where I live), our plants are not actively growing. Right now I have a long trench filled with wood chips that I empty urine into. But maybe mixing it with wood ash could be another way to go.

Hi Kim,
Thanks for the reflections and the information. Yeah, I agree that if you're mixing sand into dry bagged lime, you basically have to work out your own recipe by trial and error. The lime loses SO much volume when you add water. And using recipes that start with putty just won't do, unless you are going to make pure putty and start with that. In my project, a little trial and error yielded a good recipe. It's been a while, but I think I did 3 parts by volume powdered lime and one part playground sand, then added water to make a nice lime top coat.

Bagged type-S lime here comes already hydrated/slaked, so giving it time to develop its characteristics is unnecessary as I understand it.

I second your observation about the freshness of the lime. At one point I made an extra top coat, maybe a pigment coat actually, with the end of a bag of lime that had been sitting around for a while. It didn't cure properly and dusted off of the wall endlessly! A terrible situation. I actually made it worse by coating one part of it with wheatpaste to see if that would hold the dust to the wall, but no, the wheatpaste didn't adhere either and peel off in lime-coated flakes. What a mess!  I finally took a scrub brush to the wall to get off what I could, but it still makes flakes occasionally.   Use fresh lime!  It really matters!

Tyler Ludens wrote:I use buried wood beds and as far as I can tell, have never experienced anaerobic conditions. But I think I have a lot of worms and other critters moving around in the soil.

https://permies.com/t/52077/hugelkultur/Buried-Wood-Beds

Followed your link, the beds look beautiful, nice work! But it looks like you covered the wood directly with soil. My question referred to throwing fresh green material, like fresh weeds or unfinished compost, on top of the logs and then burying all of that with soil, which I've done. Wondering if the green stuff would anaerobically rot if buried like that.

Yeah, all of that makes sense to me, which is why I mix my dry lime with my sand before adding water. Why then, I wonder, maybe now just out of curiosity, do ALL of the lime plastering resources ALWAYS (in my experience) tell you to mix your sand into lime putty? I know that in England, the "home" of lime plaster, the putty is the starting material for most people so they have no other choice, but I have found that even in the U.S. folks will tell you to mix your bagged lime into a putty before adding sand. Here is a good example: http://buildsimple.org/resources/See%20How%20to%20Make%20Lime%20Plaster.pdf

Maybe they're just not thinking independently. I guess I'm over-thinking it myself, and should just follow my instincts.

ties Lahlali wrote:I'm no expert but I am learned that is is always good to mix the dry stuff first before adding water. Sounds like a sound plan

Ah, that is good to know! Can I ask where you learned to do that?

I was reading through Jacke and Toensmeier's Edible Forest Gardening and came across this passage on page 362:

"People often build raised beds right over existing topsoil and vegetation, without considering what happens when organic matter gets buried and goes anaerobic. Such anaerobic layers impede water movement and root growth, limit the normal transfer of gases and nutrients in the soil profile, and produce toxic by-products such as ammonia and alcohol that reduce plant and soil organism health. The topsoil and organic matter should always stay on top, or your garden will drag a hidden weight behind it, slowing its performance for many years."

This made me pause. Hugel beds are constructed differently, but the same warnings apply, yeah? In our garden, our usual practice has been to dump kitchen scraps, maybe some unfinished compost, and whatever lush green vegetation was growing on the site before excavation (others would use turf or sod) directly onto the logs and woody debris, and then bury all of that thickly with soil, then mulch. Is this not creating the anaerobic conditions that the authors warn of? I saw some talk about this on the forum. Folks have pointed out that air pockets created by the coarseness of the woody debris would keep it oxygenated. And the steepness of the beds helps with aeration somehow? But I've also seen folks talk about packing the woody debris with dirt to stabilize the mounds, and I know that some of our hugel beds are not that steep. Now I'm thinking through all this again. Seems wise to make extra sure that aerobic conditions are present, or else compost the green stuff separately.

Any other thoughts?

We've been using some lime plaster recently on our slipstraw structures, mostly as a top coat over thicker base layers of earth plaster. All of the "official" resources describe making lime plaster by mixing sand into lime putty. This seems especially appropriate in the UK where lime putty is an available resource. We're in the U.S. and I only have access to supposedly-inferior bagged "Type S" lime. This is what we've been using. Since it's pretty laborious to mix sand into lime putty, I've taken to mixing the powdered lime with the sand (I've worked out the proportions so it yields a good final mix), and THEN adding the water to make the plaster. Much easier. Anyone have any thoughts on this shortcut? Am I making an inferior plaster this way? So far the results have seemed fine, but I don't have much to compare it to.

Dave