permaculture

[jedd <jedd@progsoc.org>]

On Saturday 16 December 2006 11:58 pm, Allan Balliett wrote:
 ] not sure about reasonable applications of wood ash killing worms, but 
 ] thanks for the advice. I guess my question was 'how can I effectively 
 ] buffer the ash when applying it,' like how much elemental sulphur to 
 ] bring the pH down to 6.5, or something like that. Or if its' even 

 Hi Allan,

 I'm no expert with this side of things, and have only experimented in
 one small part of my plot with wood ash -- using two pots of ash/soil
 combo that I collected recently from a mostly pine (black cypress)
 fire, with the pots being 30cm diameter, 20cm tall  (12" x 8") dug
 into the top 10cm of a 3m x 2m area of pretty sandy soil.

 pH before the application was around 6.5 - 7.  I only have a powder
 & liquid pH tester, and so haven't tested since (I imagine it'd be
 heavily swayed by whichever small lump of soil I happened to get
 on the day).

 Having said that, I'll *speculate* that sulphur (which takes about
 6 months as I understand it) to finish shifting the pH of the soil
 you apply it to, may only be useful if you're doing a seriously
 heavy dose of ash (and sulphur) and you're happy to wait for the
 effects.

 Related speculation -- it may come down to careful selection of what
 to plant for the first few cycles until the soil settles itself. 
 I planted a mixture of peanuts and jerusalem artichokes, both of
 which seem to love it.

 Note that terra preta is getting lots of good press at the moment,
 and although that's charcoal rather than wood stove ash per se,
 I still think it's something well worth fooling around with further.

 Jedd.