Did you know that collecting wood ash from the fireplace can be a very useful ingredient for your plants and laundry? In fact, wood ash and not that of the skin has many properties and also serves as a basic ingredient for making lye. Here is the process. Wood ash, if we have the opportunity to accumulate it at home, can be a very valuable ally for ecological cleaning at home or even home remedies to revive plants. However, make sure that it is made exclusively of wood! Let’s see how we can use its properties.
To alkalize acidic soils
If we have an acidic soil and we want to fertilize it to make it alkaline, we can use ash. Let’s take a spoonful of it and put it on the soil. With a rake we move the soil and then we can spray. In this way we provide our plants with nutrients such as phosphorus, potassium and calcium.
As a pesticide
On the other hand, if our plants are affected by parasites, we can opt for a water solution in which we dissolve 2 tablespoons of wood ash. We put everything in a spray container and then shake it before spraying the leaves and the soil to take advantage of its antiparasitic effect.
As a degreaser
We can reuse the same solution at home as a degreaser spray for our encrusted pots. Just spray the solution on the encrustations and then rub it with the usual sponge we use to clean dishes. The result will be flawless on steel pots!
For the lye
On the other hand, if we want to make lye at home, the solution for making homemade soaps, we can follow this procedure. We mix 1 cup of ash with 5 cups of water in a pot. We light the fire and cook from the moment of boiling for 2 hours with lid on medium-low heat. We stir from time to time. We take it off the fire and cover it. We let it rest for one night. This will cause the liquor to rise and the ash to settle to the bottom. Now let’s decant the liquid with a cloth, taking care that the ash does not fall. Then we pour it into a clear bottle with some old laundry detergent. So, we got our bleach and detergent for the washing machine!
