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?
Wood ash is a source of potassium, that is where the name comes from, it was first isolated from pot ash. It is also highly alkaline so unless your soil is too acid for the crops you are growing it would not be a good idea. In any case spread it thinly and water it in as you don't want to shock your soil microorganisms with a rapid pH change.
If your soil doesn't need liming you might be able to spread it in your compost heap as they can be fairly acid but it all depends on quantity.
D
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. They appear to be molded, as they all have the same shape. 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.
Personally, I would never consider using the residue from charcoal briquettes, no matter what the source. Their contents are a veritable witch's brew of extraneous, non-wood sources including flue scrapings from industrial processes. If you were burning _real_ charcoal made from wood the story would be different.
The "molded" (briquettes) are a pollutant... they pollute your food and your invironment, including your soil should you choose to bury the ash. Besides various binders briquettes contain a petroleum accelerant. I would toss briquette ash in the trash, there won't be much anyway, a large bag of briquettes will yield less than a cup of wet ash... mostly you'll end up with a lot of pieces of unburned briquettes, plus the fat drippings from cooked meats, whatever additives used to make briquettes, and creosote.
Never heard of Kingsford. They appear to be molded, as they all have
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
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