Lump Ash for Fertilizer?

I don't think it would be a food for plants, ie fertilizer, but it is a great soil conditioner for gardens.

I work in Paper Mills handling their solid waste...NO not human waste! the wife hates it when people ask what i do...she thinks everyone thinks I works with human waste.  Now that is cleared up to the original question.  Ash or in this case ashes does have lime content. The amount will vary but for a norm it's about 30% of ag lime and a lot less life than ag lime.  Therefore you can spread it on your yard with out any issues.  I would not dump a pile in your yard...kinda of an eye sore.  I either put mine in my push spreader or just use a scoop and walk around the yard throwing it out.  AS stated already it is more of a soil conditioner. It would take years of cooking and compling BGE ash to amount to much.  But it will not hurt anything!  Everytime I clean out my egg I thrown the ashes in my yard for 6 years no issues.  It should be safe in flower beds being it is so low in lime content.  Industrial Ash from power boilers which burn bark, tire chips and cross ties will have traces of high metal which is not safe for human consumption or animals.  I do not know the analysis on BGE ash as to if there is any metal content.  What I do know is some of the mills I have worked in burned only wood waste and bark for fuel.  Which would be the closes thing to what we produce w/ our eggs.  Therefore unless you use something besides lump coal or wood in your egg YOU are SAFE.  Just my $0.02 from what I do for a living.  Little more info than needed for this thread.  I am not a bio chemists.

 

 

Between forty_crk and stike you can learn a lot on this site! I'm serious. I have a "buckethead" shop vac from The Home Depot that I use to vacuum my EGG with and I've been dumping them in the yard for a couple of months now. Nice to know I could helping the grass and plants. 

Nope, you didn't at all, I was just expanding on the purpose of the lime.

I think it would depend on what type of soil you have (pH wise) and what you are trying to grow. Ash is going to raise the pH of your soil. So if you have a low pH and want it higher or are trying to grow plants that need a higher pH, go for it.

THANK GAWD someone posted a question about this - I've been dumping the ash in the flower bed ever since I got the Egg, till one day when my GF was out there w/ me, and she saw me do it - she then threw a hissy fit, and asked me to take the walk around the house to the garbage & deposit the ashes there.  I tried to 'splain to her that the ashes were all natural, and it was just carbon, and it wouldn't hurt anything, but she was having none of it. 

I didn't think (or didn't know, rather) to mention the lime content...

Anyway, wonder if I can print this thread out & leave it on the table, or would that be pushing it too much??

Ash from every thing (previous grills, the Eggs, the fireplace) have been going in my vegitable garden for (crap I'm old) decades.

i toss it into the compost pile.  my neighbor buys those leaf bags and puts thirty of them out every year for pickup.  not us. all our kitchen scrap and yard waste, plus ash, goes into a perpetual pile.  in a year or so you have black loam essentially.  goes right on the grass.

in a week or week and a half, between coffee ground and fruit/veggie trimming and ash, i empty a thirty gallon container into the pile

Way too recycle and improve your yard, Stike!! I've wanted to do a compost pile, but have been in rent houses the past few years and don't want to piss off the landlords.

I should add, that at that residence we had a very large yard and garden, and the "bin" was actually a big wire enclosure.  I turned it a lot, and ran a sprinkler on it.  The grass really broke down well.  The experiment ran almost a year. 

Stike, I compost the grass clippings.  They break down well, and the volume reduces amazingly.  One of my kids did a science project on this, and during the period we recorded we put 700 cubic yards volumn into the bin, and took out 70 cubic yards of composted material.

Glad to hear it is ok for the shrubery, that's where I've been dumping it.

I grew up on a farm and still participate in the family operation. Any of you who have bought fertilizer products for plants or gardening know that the content is typically broken down into three elements - N, P, and K - Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium. Potassium is referred to in farming circles as "potash" - which is a term derived from potassium from ashes of plant material, which is what we are cleaning out of our Eggs. So yes, the lime is beneficial to the soil - but the ashes do contain some fertilizer content too. Those in northern climates can also use the ash for added traction on icy sidewalks or driveways. I have burned wood for heat for years and the ash is great for this. It isn't "pretty", but it works very well and won't damage concrete like some salts will.