Marlo Blythe

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, I am thrilled by finding out about your project in my region. I'd love to come help out sometime and maybe give my 2 cents of permie wisdom if you are looking for more thoughts on design. I am currently seeking a local source of bamboo poles (basically all shapes and sizes) to build a small interior wattle and daub wall. If you have any that I can come clear for you, or if you know of a local resource, that would be so amazing! THANKS!
-Marlo

Hi permies!
JOB OFFER and
and SEEKING VOLUNTEERS
I just started a new art collective in Seattle (montlake neighborhood) and we would like a medium-sized indoor cob wall (or other suggested natural building material) with natural plaster built ASAP. This is a job offer for a project manager. Creativity encouraged. We have 2 laborers and are looking for other volunteer hands as well! We will feed you and make sure you have fun!

Dale Hodgins wrote:
I'm going to have to be very careful about being a victim of crime. Several people have told me they had bad experiences with street gangs in this country.

I never thought I would reference my adventure novel reading material as a resource for advice, but it is nonfiction and there are accounts of how the famous bat conservationist Merlin D. Tuttle dealt with gangs encroaching on his research camps around the world in remote areas. The book is called, "The Moon by Whale Light" by Diane Ackerman, but there might be more concise accounts of Tuttle's stories somewhere on the internet.

Good soil for raised beds is too costly for me right now, since this project is a gift. And, since these dogs love to playfully destroy plants, I think it would be impossible to keep them out of raised beds without a big fence, which, since it's such a small space already I think more fencing would take away from the feng shui. I think I am going to plant a couple of very thorny but lovely shrubs, and see how that works. And maybe if I sow some wild climbers along the fenceline, they won't be disturbed as much but would have the effect of transforming the space.

Hey growies,

I am working with another suburban family small-backyard very low-maintenance-, low-cost-needs project.

Has anyone else worked with a permaculture project involving a lot of small dogs and a small backyard?
The soil is currently very high ratio of sand, like it almost looks like sand, and when I dig about a half a foot in some areas, there’s some red clay swirled in. Nice ingredients to begin soil building, but I don’t think this family wants to create a muddy dog paw situation. The sand is much easier to clean off the floor.
There are five dogs and the size of the yard is only about 2 schoolbuses. Existing oak tree shading almost half the yard. No other plants, hardly even grass or weeds at all. They think it’s because the dogs trample or playfully destroy anything they try to grow. But they want more plants, and a cuter, more appealing landscape to see while outside with their dogs. This is a project I am returning to, after unsuccessfully trying a first time 2 years ago. I planted 2 dwarf palms directly into the sand (low budget project for a friend) and a few ferns near the oak. I mulched with some grass clippings and oak leaves from the curbside, but nothing survived. The family I'm doing this for are the type of folks that believe they kill any plant they touch though, and I want to prove them wrong and give them some encouragement!

Can one of you help me get something to grow in this doggy play pen?

I have read the entirety of Fukuoka's "One Straw Revolution" (highly recommend) and in it he thoroughly explains how "do-nothing" is a HUGE figure of speech, but it's the title he deemed necessary to grab people's attention and convey in an instant the paradigm shift in thinking about agriculture that society needs to have; That we need to let nature do as much as possible, and do as CLOSE TO NOTHING as possible to nature.

Su Ba: Your accounts make it clear that we can't just copy Fukuoka's instructions in our own bioregions and mircobioregions. We have to take his PHILOSOPHY and apply it ingenuously to our home places and permaculture sites. Which may take trial, error, frustration, and loss, like it did for Fukuoka. We just have to think more broadly when that happens, and take DETAILED note of our lessons and accounts to locals, neighbors, and take on apprentices, knowing that our failures are carving the path to success of future permies in our area. (and make use of the regional permies forum on here of course!)


apply Crop Rotation principle to seed scattering
https://gardenandhappy.com/crop-rotation/

contact/create localized seed libraries for greater success in seed scattering

-Lemon

I have taken a liking to this flow arts discussion.

It's interesting, Dave Burton,
how in the last video you posted ("Sound garden creek flow restoration") one of the things they are doing to restore the creek is to remove debris. I can see how doing that makes sense to have a nice little lovely hangout area at the creek with less fear of snakes and spiders at the sound sculpture installation, but in my experience with creek restoration, organic matter debris actually helps filter the water, and in general is a good way to slow down the water and allow more of it to slowly seep into the surrounding land. And in so doing, increase the fertility of the land. I hope those folks are leaving the debris alone in the creek in the surrounding area. Removing it all would take away shelter and food source for their little fishy friends they are so fond of! I'd like to see more about how they were growing the watercress and what the design of directing or slowing down the water for the crops was.

-Lemon

Kate Michaud wrote: Dear Millennials, and younger Gens, Elders have much to offers, please lend an ear to them.  There is a crisis of older farmers who have no one to pass there land onto.  

Hi Kate Michaud,
How do we find these older farmers seeking inheritors if we are looking for land to lend a hand and create shared permaculture community?