Ash - a valuable fertilizer for the garden

With the onset of cold weather in many houses and country houses you need to heat the stove. So, there will be ashes - a valuable potash-phosphate fertilizer. Obtained by burning wood (as well as plant residues), it contains potassium and phosphorus in a form that is readily available to plants.

Potassium betrays the fruits of tenderness and strength, and phosphorus - the most important element, without which you can not get high yields. In addition, the ashes contain trace elements useful for all vegetable crops (magnesium, boron, sulfur, iron, sodium, manganese).

Since ash does not contain chlorine, it can be used under plants that react negatively to this element: strawberries, currants, raspberries.

Especially sensitive to the ashes of the main vegetable crops: potatoes, carrots and beets. For potatoes, ash from birch wood is better suited. Potassium from the ashes of potatoes is absorbed better than from potash fertilizers. Tubers are well developed, contain more starch, which means that during preparation they will be well boiled soft, and the plants themselves are less ill with phytophthora.

Ashes fertilize and deoxidize the soil, creating favorable conditions for the life of soil microorganisms, in particular bacteria, which enrich the earth with nitrogen. The introduction of ash into the soil increases the viability of the plants, they transplant faster and do not get sick less when transplanted.

You can make ashes when digging soil. It is better to do this in light sandy sands in spring, and on heavy ones - in autumn and spring. Enough - 100-200 g per square meter. In one tablespoon - 6 g of ash, in a glass - 100 g, and in a half-liter jar - 250 g

Ash has long been successfully used as a means of combating pests and diseases of horticultural crops. In particular, to protect the cabbage seedlings from such a dangerous disease, as Kila. To do this, half a bucket of ashes must be poured with water and, occasionally stirring, insist for 24 hours. Then pour 2 liters of this solution into a bucket of clean ash - fertilizer water, mix. The resulting mixture should be watered and used during planting of young plants in open soil (pour into each well).

When the cabbage takes root and goes into growth, make three or four watering with a solution of ash, after making a groove around the stem. This will not only protect the cabbage from the disease, but also deoxidize the land on the beds. Therefore, collect the ashes for the future, but keep it under the roof and cover - in the open air the ashes quickly lose their strength.