Unburned wood residues contain many compounds that are necessary for garden crops.
First of all, we are talking about potassium and phosphorus components.
This composition makes ash an effective fertilizer. Therefore, summer residents often add the bulk product to the soil.
However, when using fertilizer, you can make a serious mistake.
And instead of increasing the yield of plants, the gardener will get the opposite result.
A common mistake is mixing ash with a fertilizer with which it is completely incompatible.
Ash and nitrogen fertilizers
The desire of some gardeners to mix wood residues with a nitrogen source is quite understandable: they want to get a complex fertilizer that contains all the necessary microelements.
However, in reality, such a mixture is ineffective: due to the chemical processes occurring in it, the nitrogen component stops entering the soil.
And sometimes this element is completely “removed” from the soil cover.
Ash and manure
Manure has an interesting property: this type of “organic matter” makes the soil more acidic.
Wood ash has the opposite effect: it makes the soil more alkaline.
The combination of the two above-mentioned fertilizers leads to the mutual elimination of the effectiveness of the components.
In other words, the mixture simply becomes useless.
Therefore, it is advisable to add ash and manure at different times of the year.
