Ashes are packed full of nutrients for your soil and plants, its essentially used as an organic fertilizer. Its job is to enrich the soil to allow seedlings and growing plants to grow well and produce fruitfully. It contains both calcium carbonate and potassium. Which are both vital nutrients for crops.
Wood ash provides these nutrients in a water soluble form. Meaning that each time the plants get watered the ash will seep into the soil and release the nutrients to the plant roots.
You can’t just burn the wood and add the ashes to the garden. The ashes need to be cooled first. This might be a no-brainer to some, but when people say put some wood ash in your garden there are those out there how just might try to use hot ashes.
Some plants do NOT like wood ash. Plants that like acidic soil such as blueberries, potatoes, and strawberries will not do well if you add the ash to them. It will remove the acidity in turn ruining your plants.
To use wood ash in your garden it’s very simple. Take dry ashes and sprinkle them around the plants that do not like acidic soil as mentioned above. Water the plants to get the ashes into the soil well and then let nature do its thing.