How much or if any ash is allow in a compose pile?

I have read that you can use ashes in your compost pile but I don't know the ratio.


Dancey
Zone 8b

I don't use charcoal, but I throw my cooking ashes in the compost pile. Everything I have read says that wood ashes are fine. I wouldn't have them make up the bulk of the material, though.

Ashes are full of potash (potassium), so use them freely in the compost. They are very alkaline so don't use them directly into an alkaline soil like most of us outside East Texas have.

I understand wood ashes are good, Why are Charcoal ashes not?

The main reason is because wood ashes are 100% natural. They contain about 70% calcium oxide when fresh, or 70% calcium carbonate after exposed to the moisture in the air, both are great liming agents. Then as mentioned wood ashes, like all wood products, contains a lot of potassium.

Only natural charcoal is acceptable by experts in an organic gardening system. Synthetic charcoals contain some petro-wax products in it to hold the pressed charcoal wood together. Charcoal ashes are also very alkaline like natural wood ashes.

Using too much wood ashes, or any other liming agent in a compost pile mixed with fresh animal manures, will create a chemical reaction in the pile, releasing an abundance of ammonia gas into the atmosphere, thus wasting your valuable nitrogen in the compost pile.


In my opinion, only compost ashes if you have no other choice. If your native soil is acidic, then applying ashes or lime directly to the soil is the best way to go. Compost buffers the pH of all its acidic and alkaline organic matter ingredients, so that the final mature compost, always has a near neutral pH. Applying too many liming agents in the pile, can greatly alter the natural decomposition chemistry inside a compost pile.

Also I read the other day on another organic website, that soil pH is not just a mere function of the calcium and sulfur and water in the soil. But pH can change within inches of various growing plant roots, based on the availabilty, and abundance of compost, humus, organic mulches, and billions of aerobic soil/composting microbes.

I think I was on the Kingston charcoal website and read that they did not recommend using their product in any way for gardening. Of course they did not get into details, just a strong suggestion.