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Old June 2, 2007   #19
dice
Tomatovillian™
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: PNW
Posts: 4,743
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You can always adjust the soil right around
the plant itself with wood ash (if you have
a fireplace or wood stove or a nearby neighbor
or campground with plenty, etc). It is not a
replacement for lime, because tomatoes need
the calcium in the lime, but a little wood ash
goes a long way in adjusting pH, and it breaks
down and changes pH fast. (That will reduce
how much lime you have to spread around to
get a reasonable pH for tomatoes.)

If you want to test it, pick a spot off to one side,
a few feet away from any plants, on the edge
of your mounds. Measure some wood ash (like
a coffee can full), cultivate it in to about a 3'
circle of peaty soil, water it well, then wait
2 weeks and test it to see how much difference
that made.

Since you are going to be adding lime, too, you
probably don't want to use more wood ash than
that, and I would amend the soil with the lime
before testing the wood ash treatment. If the result
is favorable (raises the pH but not to more than 7),
you can do it around the plants that you already
have in the ground. If it raises it too high , cut
the amount of wood ash in half for each plant.
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