Homes and Gardens / ash
Fireworks night at the allotment
Fireworks night is always fairly spectacular up at the allotment. We benefit from playing fields on either side of the site, where two rival fireworks nights take place on the weekend nearest the 5th, often at the same time
Being high up on a north Bristol hill, we also get to watch the little mushrooms of far off fireworks displays all across the city. Spoilt for Atomic Tornadoes and Onyx Bursts. All we need do is light a little fire to burn off our stack of prickly bramble stems and bits of old shed, bust open a couple of toffee apples, and we’re in for a noisy and sparkly evening.
The aftermath of the bonfire leaves a fairly handy substance: wood ash. Wood ash is rich in potassium, which is the nutrient that promotes flowering and fruiting. A few days after the bonfire I like to head back and make use of that resource, scooping it up and sprinkling it around anything that wants help in that department. You can do this with your home fire ashes too but only if you eschew all coal and coal-like substances. It’s the pure wood fire ashes that we want.
I concentrate them on the dependable fruit trees and bushes, which exhaust themselves with fruit bearing every year. Each dusty shovelful of former bonfire lands at their feet, to be washed down into the soil by winter rains and slowly, slowly taken up by the roots. There will be apples, damsons and raspberries again next year.
is needed now More than ever
Image by Kirstie Young
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