"Sacha" wrote in message
...
On 2012-11-20 12:16:17 +0000, "Phil Gurr" said:


"Spider" wrote in message
...

snip

Yes, David and Sacha, I seem to remember him mentioning that, but I
don't
think it was his primary use. He really knew what he was doing and was
glad to use it. I think he missed it when central heating became the
norm.

--
Spider

All this talk of soot awakened something in the 'race memory'. At the end
of
the last war (WW2) we had an allotment and were all 'Digging for
victory'.
Soot
was in great demand for the cultivation of onions and I have just got out
one of
Father's bibles - 'The New Vegetable Grower's Handbook' by Arthur J.
Simons
published in 1945 in which he says about soot - 'So far as Onions are
concerned,
there is no finer nitrogenous fertiliser than household soot at least a
year
old,
applied in February at the rate of 8ozs per saquare yard.'

So there you are, my memories of piles of soot, weathering at the end of
each plot were correct.

Phil

Lovely, Phil, thanks. Grandpa certainly grew a lot of his own veg at the
bottom of the garden but I sort of think I remember him putting it round
roses, too. So it seems to have been an all-round popular addition to the
battery of garden 'accessories'!

Sacha, it was the sulphur compounds in the soot which were valuable for
roses.
They were an excellent protection against blackspot which was never seen in
towns with all the smoke pollution. Nowadays with clean air, blackspot is
rife!

Phil