Fire in the Garden ?

[AlittleSalt]

I could have posted this in Soilbuilding 101, but I'm thinking this could be helpful in discouraging some of those Common Garden Diseases and Pests too. While I want this to be more about any soil out there around our world, I will write about the soil I have for gardening.

Before joining Tomatoville in late May 2014, I read a lot of organic books and visited organic growing sites. A lot of info suggests that adding wood ash to a garden can/will enhance the soil. I have read countless times that wood ash helps lower alkaline soils' PH. In my case, our soil is 6.7 which is slightly acidic. (That's the Soilbuilding 101 part.)

For the Common Garden Diseases and Pests part - I use oak leaves to till into the ground. I also use them as a weed controlling mulch which also helps cool the soil (It's mostly very hot here in Texas) and it helps insulate so that I don't have to water so often. But all those leaves invite bugs. In the winter, those bugs overwinter in those leaves.

I'm very uncertain about diseases and if a fire might help rid them?

What I am thinking is, "Why not burn off those remaining leaves this winter? Burn them in place on a very cold still (Not windy) day when the pest insects are burrowed into the leaves. Then till in the oak leaf ash - leaving the soil bare. Killing the overwintering pests, adding to the soil structure, and not adding leaves until the soil has warmed up later in the year - in May here?

What do you think?

[Worth1]

Wrong move even though the fire might kill the bugs you pH is fine it could even stand to get lower a bit.
Tilling in ash will RAISE your pH not lower it, you do not want to raise your pH one bit.
Just about every thing you grow likes it a little on the acid side.
Onions can stand more alkali so put the ashes there.
Worth

[AlittleSalt]

I looked up wood ash and PH, and you are correct worth. I had read so many times that people use it to lower soil PH. Too often, I read something and think it is good info when it turns out to be wrong. Part of the reason why I quit going to those sites.

So if I want to plant potatoes in a bed or area - adding wood ash would be good, but its not for tomatoes.

I still like the idea of burning those bugs out.

Stinkbugs Roasting on an open fire
Jack Frost nipping at your nose...

Sounds like a holiday type thing to sing about.

[Spike2]

Originally Posted by AlittleSalt

I use oak leaves to till into the ground.

Wait!! What? I was told to never put oak leaves in the garden????? Granted my Old Uncles were pretty ridged in what you did with a garden (they were also manure snobs) but they were very opposed to Oak leaves. I guess it could have something to do with our soil?

[UFXEFU]

Some years I pull up my dead plants and burn in the garden spot, while other years I burn them outside my garden. To be honest, I can't really tell any difference in the next years garden. A lot of wood ash will raise the pH, but burning the few leaves used to mulch most likely would not raise the pH enough to make a difference. The fire always kills a few grasshoppers, crickets, and stink bugs, or at least the ones that don't escape, but the years I burn in the garden spot I have just as many as the years I don't burn there.

[UFXEFU]

Originally Posted by Spike2

Wait!! What? I was told to never put oak leaves in the garden????? Granted my Old Uncles were pretty ridged in what you did with a garden (they were also manure snobs) but they were very opposed to Oak leaves. I guess it could have something to do with our soil?

I don't think oak leaves will hurt anything, but I've been told not to put hickory leaves in a tomato garden.

[AlittleSalt]

Spike, there is a lot to read about using oak leaves in gardening. I have found them to be beneficial. They make our sandy loam soil more friable. I've read that the roots of oak trees intake trace elements/nutrients from deep in the soil and transfer them to the leaves. I usually mow the leaves before tilling them in because it makes decomposition easier/faster.

In our raised beds, I use soil, oak leaves, and a little 10-10-10 fertilizer to fill the beds. That is what I used making our raised 45 x 45' main garden. The resulting soil is spongy instead of it being like the untreated soil which is hard. Our untreated soil during a drought turns into blow sand and doesn't like water. When watering soil like this - the water beads on the surface and runs off. Soil that I have amended with oak leaves takes in water.

[BigVanVader]

I've used oak leaves for years, they are definitely not harmful.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by Spike2

Wait!! What? I was told to never put oak leaves in the garden????? Granted my Old Uncles were pretty ridged in what you did with a garden (they were also manure snobs) but they were very opposed to Oak leaves. I guess it could have something to do with our soil?

Okay here is the run down about leaves and my thoughts that come from solid information.
Also a few observations about what people say to do.
When you are reading something in a book or on line be forewarned it could come from an area not like your own.

If you live in an area that has highly acidic soil the person through experience may say not to use certain leaves.
Oak leaves can help acidify soil so places with alkali soil can benefit from them.

Then the question of pecan hickory and walnut came up.
Of the group walnut contains the most juglone but even then it doesn't mean you cant use the leaves.
Juglone breaks down when the leaves are composted.
Pecan and hickory dont contain enough to even worry about.


So the next time someone tells you not to use certain leaves in soil make them come up with solid information as to why not half baked information.

Here is a very good link about the subject.
I have read many and the only good ones for the most part come from solid science.


Worth

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...wKOS7S3L0fZGPw

[Spike2]

Originally Posted by Worth1

So the next time someone tells you not to use certain leaves in soil make them come up with solid information as to why not half baked information.


Worth

I have so much to learn!! My Old Uncles were so adamant about how things were done that it never dawned on me to question them. Not only out of respect but they were born on this land and lived here their whole lives, so naturally I took their word as law. So thanks for the link Worth!! I need all the help I can get!

[AlittleSalt]

Spike I completely understand what you wrote. My father thought he was right about everything and was a very controlling type who suppressed everyone he could. He told us that the dirt where we live is useless because he tried a garden that failed. My wife and I stubbornly tried to grow plants anyway. A lot of them did fail until we planted some Ivy and some Lupines back in 1993. Our place has Ivy that we are proud of. Over the years, people delivering mail, propane, and guests have stopped to comment on the ivy. There are blue lupines growing everywhere. My father passed in 2011. A lot has changed out here since then. I'm learning how to grow here - I wish he could see that.

Spike, it's your garden now. You pick and choose and learn. I'll help with friendship, thoughts, ideas, opinions, seeds, inspiration, and things I haven't thought about.

[bjbebs]

Personally, I would never burn leaf mulch off, even if it was to kill bugs. Leaves of any type in any form add so much to soil structure. I add leaves, manure, cover crops and spent plant residue to my gardens. If I had to choose only one, it would be leaves.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by bjbebs

Personally, I would never burn leaf mulch off, even if it was to kill bugs. Leaves of any type in any form add so much to soil structure. I add leaves, manure, cover crops and spent plant residue to my gardens. If I had to choose only one, it would be leaves.

If you look at it from a perspective of humans not being here this is what you will notice.
Leaves give back to the plants what they took away.
If you come along and rake away the leaves every year in the forest it would eventually die.
Every once in a while a fire comes along and the ash puts potassium back in the soil.
This is where the term potash came from ashes from potted plants.
Volcanoes and ash fall out add nutrients to the soil also.
Rivers flood and replenish soil.

In other words everything is in equilibrium we have to know and understand this to live with and be successful in our world.
So far we are stuck with it and cant go some place else.

I am not a so called Tree Hugger but it seems everything humans do effects our world in a negative way.

Worth

[bjbebs]

Salt
This is a long read. Part 4 somewhat cuts to the chase. You might find some good info.

file:///C:/Users/user/Downloads/Building_Soils_For_Better_Crops.pdf

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by bjbebs

Salt
This is a long read. Part 4 somewhat cuts to the chase. You might find some good info.

file:///C:/Users/user/Downloads/Building_Soils_For_Better_Crops.pdf

Dead link.