Recycle those wood ashes

[moxies_chickennuggets]

We did them in the gardens last year...but we also had 5 huge piles of brush to burn. Oh...to have had access to a chipper shredder!!

 

[mrbstephens]

Like a couple of others said, it's great for the chickens for dust bathing. Kills the lice and mites.

 

[Hinotori]

Just went out and added a bunch of ash to the chicken's sand box in their shelter. Hopefully it makes it more enticing. Silly things like the decomposed pellets and dirt better than sand. Maybe this will help make it more enticing.

The rest I spread over my parking spot in the gravel after reading on here. Hopefully it will keep the grass and clover out of the spots if I keep doing it. Drive is to long to do the whole drive, but I can work on it a bit at a time.

 

[Tatter]

I use a wood burning furnace for now. What I use my ashes for depends on the wood I burn. If I burn just hard wood, I use the ashes in my soap to make extra cleansing charcoal bars. If its soft woods combined with hardwoods, then the ashes go on the garden and some of my select herbs and flowers. However, I always make sure to keep a gallon of ash in the garage to use as an alternative to dealing with ice and stuck vehicles (mail lady always gets stuck on the road due to ice buildup).

 

[edjanuary39]

I am saving my hard ash for soap making, but I dont have a good recipe- firstimer- how much ash do I need to make the lye, how do you know how strong the lye is, can you give me some info? Thanks!

 

[Tatter]

I make 2.5 lb batches as I don't have the room really to make larger batches, so I use 4 ounces of lye with tablespoon of ash. With activated charcoal its important to use 1 tablespoon per pound of oils. You may wish to get a soap making book. One like "Basic Soap Making" is a good one with colored pictures to show step by step. Also, it may be wise to get a soap making kit for starters. These generally run about $90 depending on where you get it from. The kits include everything but the lye. Lye can be found at betterbee.com (mail order) where it's $9.50 for a 2 lb container. I use to buy from there until I started making my own lye.

 

[Strysa]

Wow, thanks everyone for the great tips. I have been just dumping my ash in the garbage. My hubby and I are just getting started in SS life and it never ceases to amaze me at all of the creative ways to use my leftovers! So glad to have found his community.