If your primary heating source is wood, there’s always plenty of wood ash to go around. What do you do with them?
While you may be hard-pressed to think of uses for wood ash in a modern home, historically it was used in many different creative ways. Wood ash was a precious asset, used for food preservation, gardening, pottery, pest control, and even cosmetics.
Long before baking soda was discovered, wood ash based leveners allowed for holiday cookies. Our ancestors wouldn’t have invented soap without wood ash lye…the list goes on.
While some of these uses are merely a historical curiosity, many are still incredibly useful in our modern world. Looking for free garden fertilizer? Natural pest control? Stain and odor removers? Wood ash can do that!
Even if you only use a handful of these suggestions, you’ll probably end up with an empty ash bucket come spring.
Safety First
It’s important to note that this list assumes you are burning clean wood and not chemically treated wood such as pressure treated, stained, or painted wood.
If you wouldn’t roast a hot dog over the fire it came from, you shouldn’t be using it around your house.
Hardwoods generally have more nutrients in them than softer woods like pine, but softwoods render softer ash than hardwoods.
Embers can stay hot for days. Make sure your wood ash is completely cool before using it around your home.
Wear gloves when working with wood ash as it can be caustic. Be extremely careful when creating or using lye from wood ash as it is also caustic and can cause severe burns.
Store your ash out of the elements when using it in the garden.
Wood ash is enriched with many of the same minerals that it contained as a tree – calcium, potassium, magnesium and other trace minerals, to name a few.
1. Correct Acidic Soil
Wood ash is an excellent soil amendment for overly acidic soil.
According to the Cooperative Extension at the University of California Davis you can use those ashes to help balance the pH of acidic soil.
It’s best to test the pH of your soil first before applying, but generally speaking, the Cooperative Extension suggests for every 100 square feet you’ll apply 5-10 pounds of ash.
The best time to do this is before planting when you can till it directly into the soil. If you do apply your wood ash to soil with young plants already growing, be sure to rinse them down afterward as the ash can burn the tender leaves.
2. Boost Your Compost
To supercharge your compost heap throw in some ash, this boosts the nutrient-dense microbial environment that’s cooking in your compost.
Dave Dittmar over at Compost Junkie informs us that those little chunks of porous charcoal mixed in with the ashes provide your compost with much-needed oxygen making for very happy microbes.
The porous nature of charcoal also means all of those minerals from the ash are absorbed and kept into your compost instead of being leached out by rain.
3. Keep Bears Out of Your Compost
Ashley from Practical Self Reliance says that dusting your compost pile with wood ash keeps the bears from mistaking it for an all you can eat buffet.
Again, remember that wood ash is alkaline, so don’t add too much. Experiment with a trowel-full at a time and consider testing with a pH kit.
4. Stop Snails and Slugs in their Slimy Tracks
Snails and slugs, cute as they may be, can wreak havoc on a garden. There is nothing more disappointing than coming out one day to find your cabbages looking like Battenberg lace.
Stop the slimy little creeps in their tracks by making a circle of ash around plants susceptible to snails and slugs.
I feel like a benevolent white witch casting a circle of protection spell around my precious shitake and oyster mushroom logs with the ashes provided by our woodstove in the shop. Though shalt not touch my mushrooms!
5. Bust Blossom End Rot
Seeing that first black splotch on the bottom of your gorgeous tomatoes is enough to bring anyone to tears because you know it’s just the beginning of more blossom end rot.
Head it off at the start of the season by giving susceptible plants an extra dose of calcium.
When you are planting tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, and peppers; toss a small handful of wood ash into the hole before plunking your plant in the dirt.
6. Put the Kibosh on Pond Algae
Give your aquatic plants the upper hand by feeding them potassium-rich wood ash. In turn, they will thrive, leaving the algae without the nutrients it needs to survive. Bye, Bye, algae bloom!
When it comes to using ashes in the pond, a little goes a long way. Off the Grid News advises using roughly one tablespoon per 1,000 gallons of water.
If you aren’t sure of your water volume, proceed with caution; start small and give it a few days before adding more ash.
7. Save Crops from Frost Damage
When the temperatures start to dip in the fall, nothing can strike fear in the heart of a gardener quicker than the threat of a frost.
I still recall my grandmother “tucking in” the tomatoes on cold nights with old bedsheets. No worries, dust your plants with some powdery wood ash to prevent frost damage.
8. Dust-Bathing Birds
Chickens dust bathe to control pests, adding ashes to their dust bath helps to kill critters like mites, fleas, and lice in much the same way that diatomaceous earth works.
Give your birds the spa treatment with a few trowels of ash sprinkled around their bathing area. Cucumber water and fluffy bathrobes are optional.
9. Powder Your Pets
In the same vein, rubbing ashes into your dog or cat’s coat can kill fleas as well as deodorize their fur.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess this is easier to do with dogs than it is with cats. But give it a try if you have an especially docile cat or a good thick pair of leather gauntlets. Good luck!
10. Don’t Stop There
This trick works equally well for livestock. Dust your goats, cows, donkeys, bunnies and other hardworking members of your homestead with a little wood ash to help keep pests at bay for them too. They’ll be happier and healthier.
11. Deodorize Your Chicken Coop
As much as I love the personality of a coop full of hens, they sure are known to create a stench.
Put a good thick layer of wood ash, complete with charcoal chunks, down in the chicken coop before adding whatever litter you use on top to keep your chicken coop fresh.
12. A Brita for Your Bunnies and Birds
Dig out a chunk or two of the charcoal from your wood ash and toss it in your rabbit water bottles or your poultry waterer to help keep algae from growing as well as other nasties.
Be sure to replace it periodically with a fresh piece of charcoal. Every-bunny deserves fresh water.
13. Boost Your Hen’s Laying Power
The lovely Lisa over at Fresh Eggs Daily suggests using wood ash to supplement your flock’s feed.
In turn, you will be rewarded with better lay rates and longer laying periods.
Mix in the wood ash with your chicken feed at a 1% ratio. She says this can even help to reduce the smell of their, ahem, exhaust.
14. Control Litter Box Odor
You guessed it, the odor-absorbing power of charcoal saves the day again.
Wood ash was the original cat litter, after all, used by cat owners before the invention of commercial clay litters. Sprinkle a cup of ashes with a few smaller bits of charcoal into clean cat litter and mix it in.
Keep your home smelling cat-free—even if you have a herd.
15. Undo a Skunk Encounter
It’s every dog owner’s worst nightmare, and it always seems to happen at night as you’re getting ready for bed.
“What’s that in the yard? Are those eyes? No! Sparky! Sparky come back here!”
Too late.
Usually, whatever you wash your pet with doesn’t completely get rid of the smell. After you have bathed and dried your precious wildlife ambassador rub them down with wood ash and work it into their fur. That should finish off whatever the soap didn’t undo.
When you’re cleaning out the wood stove, don’t take that ash bucket too far. There are so many uses for it around the house.
16. Fireplace Glass Cleaner
If you have glass doors on your fireplace or woodstove, they can become stained with creosote blocking your view of those beautiful dancing flames.
Dab a bit of the powdery ash on a damp sponge or cloth and use it to scrub the creosote away.
Wait for your woodstove or fireplace to cool down completely before cleaning glass.
17. Glass Top Stove Cleaner
The same method can be used to clean your glass top stove. For stubborn, cooked on gunk, make a paste using the ash and a little water.
You’ll want to be sure there aren’t any charcoal pieces in your paste, so be sure you are using only the fine powdery ash.
