Wood stove ashes

[boilerhouse47]

I've been burning wood for 3 years now and I am getting a pretty big pile of ashes. What does everybody do to get rid of there ashes that doesn't hurt the enviroment?
                        Boiler

PS. I tried dumping them down the wood chuck holes on my property, but the chucks just push them back out.

[karl]

I usually spread them on the icy drive for traction and on the backfield (rainy days keep ashes from bowing around)

I am assuming here that you are not burning old painted lumber or treated, etc.

[Patty]

We throw ours onto the garden or the fields throughout the winter. No harm done.

[Buzz-sawyer]

Place them in a wood/plastic tub...........allow rain to wash through...save lye for making BIODIESEL and soap

[MULE_MAN]

I always did the same as kari  I would save them for the drive way
works real good for Traction on a hill & helps melt the ice.
If I ever had any left. I also put them on the garden like Patty mention

[Weekend_Sawyer]

 I spread a little around the front yard plants and trees every time I clean the fireplace and woodstoves, then the rest gets brodcast in the garden. I beleive it is good for the plants. I do not burn plastics because I heard that was bad to put burned plastic ashes in a garden. Bad for the mamals that eat out of the garden, in my case that's deer woodchucks, rabbits, squirls, my nieghbors and even me!

[Gunny]

We've always spread them right on top of our garden areas--they "sweeten" up the soil as the rains wash them in, especially when in very close proximity to pines of any kind.  I think they do away with cutworms, too, if not mistaken (only time we've ever had cutworms is when we brought in soil from elsewhere or worked up a fresh patch).  

[Ron Wenrich]

I throw mine on top of the compost pile, then mix it in.  Wood ash is high in potash.  Good for plants.  That's why slash and burn agriculture works, until the soil is depeleted. 

I know of one guy that was burning his air tight too low.  He was getting big amounts of creosote coming out of his chimney.  He figured since wood ashes were good for his plants, then creosote would be good for his trees.  They both came from the stove.  Killed all his trees.   

[Woodcarver]

Ashes from the firepot = potash (potassium).  That is apparently the origin of the term potash for potassium fertilizer. 

[Ernie]

They sure make the roses bloom well

[woodmills1]

sawdust + wood ash + manure (or compost) would make a great fertilizer.

but no creasote or ash from coal.

[pappy]

We spread em out around our lilacs and rose bushes... we also keep a bucket in the privy "outback" and like the sign says on the door "If you tinkle and a sprinkle and if you poop and a scoop"... helps with the smell and also breaks down the pile... 

[OneWithWood]

The ashes from our central boiler unit and from the woodstove in the workshop go into our compost pile.  Makes for some wonderful soil.

[bull]

Lawn,Garden,and compost pile !!  Never have enough

[boilerhouse47]

Thanks to everyone! You learn something new every day. The lumps that look like charcoal, can they be spead by the plants or should I sift them out? Karl, there is nothing burned in my stove but hard wood and an occasional chunk of pine like 2 + 4's cut into kindling.
             boiler 

[SwampDonkey]

I throw charcoal and all, right on the garden.

[Tom]

I heard that it causes a garden to grow rocks. 

[SwampDonkey]

Tom,

Sure seems to promote gravel and cobble.

[boilerhouse47]

Tom, when I was a kid ( many, many years ago) my Grandmother had a ROCK garden, maybe she used lumpy ashes and I just never understud how she was growing them!!
                                             Boiler

[Robert_in_W._Mi.]

  Here on the farm we grow veggies, and i save all the discarted bones left from processing the deer we get every season.  In the winter i burn them in my wood stove that's in the shop.  The ashes that come from the stove then also have "bone meal" in them.  This is very good for plants and along with the pot-ash really gives plants "another" thing they need.

  We have been doing this for many many years, and NO they do not stink when i throw them in a hot fire along with the wood that i burn.

  Robert