Spreading Hardwood Ash on Clay Soil - March 2026

The pizza oven bed that I created last year is full of heavy, hard-to-drain clay soil.  While, it may not be a perfect solve, I still laid down a patch of firewood ash (hardwoods only) on top of the mulch after I cleaned up the screened door fireplace for the season.  

I've done this in the past like here in January 2024 and typically spread the ash around to different spots in our garden or just dump the bucket into the compost bin in the far back of the yard.  

Here, below, is the ash on the pizza oven bed:

I need to lay down some organic material on this bed in the next few weeks ahead of planting dahlias here to give them a better shot at success.  

The other thing I've done that involves ash is doing some small in-place burns with my mini torch.  I'll get out there and do some of these around the beds, too.