Bonfire Ash

[Dave]

I was talking to a local builder who has a wood burner in his home and he tells me that he burns any sort of wood that he comes across, providing it is dry.

Is he wise to do this?

Dave

[bof]

In message , Dave writes

Google "deborah barrie", she used to post a lot on u.m. and, I think, many other places. IIRC her neighbour was a builder who burnt treated wood.

[Dave]

That is frightening. I've printed your reply out and it is now in my top pocket for when he comes in the pub again.

Thanks

Dave

[The Natural Philosopher]

Probably.

Its just if EVERYBODY does it, its hell.

Remember London in the 50's when open coal fires was THE way to heat a home?

And running tracks were 'cinder tracks' because that is exactly what they were. Steam engine fly ash.

[Dave]

No, but I remember Manchester which was a far bigger user of coal. It was at the centre of coal mining at that time. I rode a bike then and I had 3 red rear lights lit up and the number of cars that followed me at

20 MPH was a wonder to see.

Dave

[The Natural Philosopher]

London even then was a few million. Manchester never was the same size. EVERYBODY used coal for EVERYTHING.

If it wasnt the coal it was the coke left over from making gas. No natural gas then., Nice mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide.

It

Neat..

[Rick Hughes]

I thought about planting potatoes for that reason.

I built the raised beds as ground is crap ... (old railway sidings created out of steel works slag .. etc.) This now has a good 'base' of 18" deep sieved soil. Its' still not exactly worlds best soil, still pretty heavy.... coming this week from local farm is 6 ton of rotted (hopefully) cow manure .... neighbours will certainly know when it has arrived. :-) Plan is to put a 4" layer over the soil, then a dusting of Lime over that to help counter the clay, and then a 2-3" layer of soil over that (keep down smell a tad) .... then leave it over winter. Idea being that rain will percolate down through top layer taking lime & nutrients into base, then in spring I'll turn the lot over ... and hopefully should have improved the heaviness of it.

i have access to as much farm yard menu as I want - so may well do this more than once.

While the soil is pretty heavy - it does support growth well, I put in a retaining wall (38m long) in front of a bank ... put in stone - French drain -stone - Terram, then 3' of this soil, and had all sorts of flowers & heathers growing in it for past 2 years - so it 'support growth', just a bit on heavy side.

Maybe a harvest of spuds will do it some good. - when should/can they be planted ? am I too late?

[Rick Hughes]

During my build ... there were loads of wood off-cuts .... several skipfulls I would imagine (2 large timberfarme structures) .... plenty of people came and carted away sacks of offcuts ..... Chimneas seemed to be very popular last year.

Majority of wood was tanalised or vac-vac protimised.

[Rick Hughes]

I do my bit .... I recycle almost everything in the house - we are amazed our rubbish going out is i small bag, and about 5 or 6 recycle bags (paper, plastic, metal etc) yet other in street recycle nothing.

I also have a underground water tank ... over 80% of the water used in my house comes from collected rain water ... all toilets, washing machine, hose pipes etc.

Made sense to put this in when I did the build. Been law in Benelux for years - either individual or communal rain water harvesting systems must be in place on all new builds.

Should be law in UK ....

[Rod]

The traditional time was Easter weekend. But that always seemed a bit of a chance given the way the date varies so much.

(Apparently the traditional Irish date is St Patrick's day - which at least falls on the same date every year!)

I have heard of people planting in the autumn - but they needed very thorough mulching/earthing up to protect against frost.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Hope its not like or horse manure then. From grass sprayed with weed killer. Killed every single vegetable it touched.

Don't need lime on clay. Clays not acidic.

Use lime with peaty soils only.

what tyou need is sand for rainage for root veggie. peat is best for atties, but they will grow in straight clay. Beans also.

Really with clay, its superb at holding water and nutrients, its just a bit too good at holding water., So cut in some organic shit and sand.

Only sand and organics will do that. leaf mould is brill. Keep composting weeds too.

test it on seedlings FIRST. IF they dont die, use it.

No, about 6 months too early.

Tatties in as frosts end generally.

Beans in when frosts have ended. Beans are great. add nitrogen.

another that works on rough wet soil is courgette/marrows/squashes etc.

only thing worth planting now is probably leafy stuff..cabbages or kales or spinaches. They do grow a bit in teh winter.

[Tim Lamb]

In message , Rick Hughes writes

Potatoes *clean* ground because you ridge the soil up over the growing tubers. This involves hoeing (two or three times) the ground between the rows thus removing most of the weeds. Also potato harvesting may occur before the remaining weeds have set seed and matured.

Umm.. Rotted cow manure should not smell much.

ISTR that lime is thought to help break up clay (flocculate?) but I don't know the chemistry involved.

Easterish as others have said. It depends if you are in Cornwall or Berwick. Early maturing varieties can be planted before heavier yielding main crop. Quantity sown might be an issue. I grow about 30' of earlies: roughly 30 seed potatoes. This keeps us going until the main crop are ready.

regards

[PeterC]

Most people plant at Easter, then the plants are knocked back by frost. My father used to plant on the 1st. of June and his spuds were ready about a week or so after those planted at the 'traditional' time.

[Man at B&Q]

It was right the first time.

MBQ

[Jules]

Has anyone ever actually assembled a box of frogs to see how mad they get? The kids had one frog in a box a few weeks back and it didn't seem particularly insane, but maybe it's all a question of frog density.

(Lots of frogs around here a few weeks ago, but now they've all disappeared to do whatever it is they do once it gets cold. Croak, maybe)

cheers

Jules

[Andy Dingley]

Nope, but the SI unit of crazy is the milliWendy. An angry badger is about 140mWy, because she was as mad as a sack of badgers and you can get about 7 badgers in a sack.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Watch out jules. I had to replace the motor on my sewage treatment plant because a hibernating frog found the warm outflow, settled in, and pushed a load of stuff up the pipe before he crawled in, and some more stuff afterwards.

Flooded it.

[Tim W]

Huge wibbled on Tuesday 06 October 2009 11:55

Just out of interest, is there anything to refute her claims? I could imagine long term arsenic poisoning isn't very good for you - but I'm not into poisons...

[Tim W]

Huge wibbled on Tuesday 06 October 2009 14:57

I see...

[The Natural Philosopher]

Long term (natural) arsenic poisoning is actually not as bad as the same dose taken all at once..ceratainly beats mixing up (organic, natural) hemlock with angelica, or (organic, natural) amanita virosa with agaricus campestris.

I once counted the poisonous or at least dangerous plants and so on to be found within ten minutes walk. Quite a collection.

In the garden: Foxglove Hemlock. Opium Poppies. (The Datura died, sadly) Several species on inocybe mushroom. A couple of nasty other ones whose name I forget.

Further way the varieties got more exotic. Belladonna, possibly thorn apple, and a MUCH greater selection of inocybe and other wood dwelling poison factories. The odd amanita as well, but they mainly like sandy soils and birch and pine trees. . All totally(organic,natural)(TM) products.