We’ve just had ten days of seemingly incessant rain on the
Basque Coast. My scientific ‘how much water is
there in the bucket?’ methodology suggested we had 50% more than the
median rainfallfor all of November (the wettest month of all in this wet location) in the first
five days of that period.
After that the
buckets were full and I stopped counting.
Three days before the rains began I had my beach mat, sunscreen and sandals
packed for the beach.
Yesterday, tidying
up the flat I decided to put them into storage for the winter.
After five days I ran out of wood. I had been sporadically collecting bits of
driftwood and abandoned wooden furniture over the summer, my cleaner’s son
turned up with a 10 Euro load a few days before the rains hit in, but it was
all soon burnt. That which was left needed
sawing into stove size logs and the rain never let up. I kept a close eye on the skies. Whenever it
stopped raining I would head down to a couple of points on the bay where the driftwood
gathers and there are nearby parking places, or cruise the industrial estate
looking for abandoned palettes.
I could, and should, have ordered a cubic metre of logs
weeks ago. But it wasn’t so simple. The going rate around here is 50 Euro for a
cubic metre. But when I let slip that I live
on the third floor without a lift the price suddenly doubles. No one, myself included, wants to haul a
cubic metre of wood up three flights of stairs.
So my wood acquisition habits are going to have to be slow and stealthy and
ensure a steady supply rather than buying in my winter’s supply in one fell
swoop.
Over the past ten days I have got very good at learning how
to mix quite humid driftwood, with well-seasoned older wood (about 2 parts to 1
does the trick). Last night I even learned
the trick of keeping the fire in all night. I was thrilled when I lifted the
log, blew under it sparked back into flame.
But today it was unnecessary. The
sun has come back and my balcony doors are open again with a fire smouldering
at the minimum level to keep it in for the evening .
'Getting wood' is one thing, getting rid of it is quite another
Systems have inputs and outputs.
Acquiring the inputs to keep my fire going
has been difficult but I didn’t give enough thought as to what to do with the
outputs.
I merrily thought I could just feed the planters
on my balcony with the ashes.
After all
that is how agriculture worked for millennia until land pressure got too
much
and people had to move beyond slash
and burn.
I might have rather overdone
it.
Some planters got rather too much too
ash, which when it rained again, turned into a impermeable clay like layer on
the top of the soil.
I did some internet
searching about optimum application rates.
The University of Illinois’sextension service had some rather useful advice.
When water comes in
contact with wood ashes, it forms potassium hydroxide. This compound is highly
alkaline and can rapidly raise soil ph. For this reason, wood ash should be
viewed as a liming material and used carefully. Wood ashes should not be
applied to high pH soils (> 6.5).
And
Never use more than 20
pounds per 1000 square feet because toxicity problems could result from
excessive usage.
I think I might have exceeded the recommended dosage: done
the
Gardener’s World equivalent of a ‘Keith Richards’.
Today I went around all the planters I had
fertilised and removed as much of the ashes I could and put them in a bin to go
to the local communal garden’s compost.
I don’t know if my ferns,
retrieved
from landfill in Cornwall, still very weak after being transplanted from
Brussels are going to survive the experience.
They are acid loving after all.
Still my garden hasn’t given up on summer yet!
