On 6/07/2014 2:07 AM, Not@home wrote:
Fran Farmer wrote:
On 5/07/2014 10:18 AM, Not@home wrote:
Zone 5 with soil rich with humus.

I have a new charcoal grill and one of the features is a pan underneath
that collects the ashes. I hate to waste something that may be useful,
so I did some reading and found that the ashes are a good source of
potassium, which may be useful in the garden. We grow cherries,
blueberries, and strawberries, corn, beets, tomatoes, and beans. Where
would be the best place to spread my ashes?


Do you mean real charcoal or the sort ash that comes from the heat beads
that are used in a Weber?

I save the ashes from my winter fires in the house and use them in most
areas of the garden in the late winter, early Spring after shaking them
through a garden sieve. I save the big lumps of carbon to pound up and
use in my veggie beds.

I never use the ashes from the heat beads used in the Weber. They get
taken to the tip.

Heat beads is a new term to me. I'm in the US. We buy a bag of
charcoal made by Kingsford.

Never heard of Kingsford.
They appear to be molded, as they all have
the same shape.

If they are all the same shape they are probably the sort that is used
in a Weber and known here as heat bead or briquettes. Real charcoal
varies in shape.

I wouldn't use the ash from anything that is uniform in shape and looks
'manufactured' as opposed to various sized real charcoal made in the old
way by excluding oxygen during the burn.

We have a Latino grocer near us and sometimes we buy
Kingsford Mesquite charcoal there. A nearby hardware store sells bags
of chunk charcoal, but the chunks are too large for my grill.