October 7, 2015  Save and Reuse Your Wood Ashes This Winter

Love to hang out by the fire pit with friends and family on a cool fall evening?  Or perhaps, like us, you can’t wait until winter time, for the sole reason that you get to have roaring fires in your fireplace as often as you like.  

Well, believe it or not, all that ash created by wood fires can be saved and re-purposed for other uses around your house.  

Important Note: Just be certain to store your ashes in a fireproof container with a tightly fitting lid.  A metal can is a good choice for this purpose.  Place the metal can on a concrete or dirt surface, well away from anything combustible.  Ashes can sometimes retain embers for days or longer.

Here are some creative suggestions for ways to reuse your wood ash.  Some may be obvious, others, not so much.

• Enrich Your Compost.  Mix a small amount of ash into your compost pile to increase the nutrients in the mix.  Just be careful not to overdo it.
• Natural Pest Deterrent  Sprinkle wood ash in your garden to deter snails and slugs.  It also will help to get rid of ants in your home, because they are not able to move the ash, and will therefore “move away”.
• De-Icer.  Wood ash contains some salt, which makes it a good de-icer.  Sprinkle it on walkways and paths in the winter time.
• Cleaner.  It sounds counter-intuitive, but ashes make a great cleaning agent.  They are particularly good for oil or grease spills on concrete, and for cleaning glass fireplace doors and glass oven doors.

By See Jane Drill, Copyright 2015, All Rights Reserved