I often chime in on this subject .... I live on alkaline soils, the pH varies from 7.2 to 7.8. I burn 6-8 cords of wood a year, as did the owner before me, so figure 50 years of every winter week, throwing 3 gallons of wood ash around the place. When there's snow on the ground, I just heave it out widely over the snowy lawn so that any coals go out quickly. When there's no snow, I dump it in a pit, which is 5 feet from an oak tree. In the spring, the first grass to 'green up' is where I've thrown the ash. The oak tree pit gets flooded / seeps out, flooded/ seeps out etc. with irrigation water over the course of the summer, and the ash gets washed on down the slope. Where the grass grows much better, deeper green, thicker, than anywhere else on the lawn. The only times I've had problems are when I throw a 4-6" thick clump of ash on soils that are only a few inches deep, with sandstone underneath. That will kill the grass. But even then, by the end of the summer, the dead patch is covered by the grasses encroaching from around. I throw ash in my snow-covered flower beds all the time. I've stopped throwing ash in the vegetable gardens because I pile up grass clippings and chopped leaves all over the beds in the fall, and I'd likely set that on fire. I've also gardened on acid soils for years when I lived overseas, and we often burned charcoal for cooking, and used the ash constantly. The benefits were pretty dramatic. Of course, your milage may vary. I'd suggest starting off by dumping the ash in some out-of-the-way place and see what effect you find.

Ok, here's a crude calculation just to give you an order of magnitude. Let's suppose you had 10 lb of ash, and it was dug into a 5x5 ft area to a depth of 1 ft. While searching for the actual formula of CCA, I ran across a paper on the metals content of CCA treated wood ash, so I could skip some steps. CCA was made in two grades, 0.25 lb CCA/cu ft of wood and a higher grade 0.4 lb/cu ft. Their sample was 4 kg/m3 which works out to about the 0.4 type. The ash was about 20,000 mg/kg (ppm) Cr, 10,000 ppm Cu and 11,000 As. After a bunch of conversion, that comes out to 36 ppm of additional arsenic added to the 5x5 area if distributed a foot deep (using 1.5 tons/cu yd of soil). I picked As because it's the most toxic of the three metals. Now this is above health-based guidelines for residential soil, which are in the range of 5-15 ppm. Note, those numbers are based on your entire yard being at that level, and living on it for a very long time, with a resulting risk of death from cancer or non-cancer health effects reduced to essentially nothing amongst all the noise of other risks in life (i.e. a rate of 1 in 100,000 or 1 in 1,000,000 excess deaths). You will not experience arsenic poisoning from this soil in the way that you're thinking. It's more like a small incremental increase in health risk, much like smoking a cigarrette (or a whole pack ) won't kill you, but it's not particularly good for you. Here is a link that might be useful: CCA Ash Analysis Paper This post was edited by toxcrusadr on Wed, Nov 20, 13 at 12:00

How about all three? In my case, I use 4 different fuels for heat. Now that you have a vision of four different heating sources stacked side by side, let me explain. I've burned cordwood for over 30 years, so I consider myself somewhat of an expert. First off, I had an edge. I'm a retired independent log trucker. Enough said about the edge. Cordwood is hands down the most cost effective, most comfortable fire there is. But, now that I'm in my mid fifties, getting the wife and kids together for a day of woodcutting can be a problem, although we all could use the exercise. When all the kids were home I found their constant motion coupled with the natural radiant heat of a free standing air tight stove was all the circulation needed to move the heat.After they moved on I discovered there were cool to cold parts of the home that never existed before. We decided to add a pellet / corn stove to see if we liked the heat and to cut down on the woodcutting. Bottom line, its "just" okay. Ive found my multi fuel Country Stove to be a bit of a pain to operate as well as being quite noisy. Dont get me wrong; the ease of operating a pellet stove compared to the tedious chore of splitting wood is no comparison, just a different kind of pain. I purchase pellets by the ton (now $200 per ton), (two years back $129). I also use about a 20% corn to wood pellet mixture. This seems to be the best mix for this stove as straight corn tends to put the fire out. I store the wood pellets in a dry part of my barn. These have kept well for three years (I buy large quantities to save). The corn I purchase in bulk from a local grain elevator, currently $105 per ton. Ive done better by shopping around. Bottom line, I use cheap corn to cut the cost of pellets. I store the corn in 1 ton feed sacks in my shop. Ive had one bag for three years now and the corn is doing just fine. (Keep it dry!) For my final type of heating fuel; Dumb me discovered with all the kids grown and gone no one was home to either stoke the fire or add pellets when we would take the occasional Winter trip. I purchased a small propane fired free standing stove for the living room for these rare occasions. Oh my goodness! Forget about heating with a freestanding propane fired stove. It will depress you. While youre away having fun, your little stove will consume its weight in gas daily. Its a great little stove to put your cold toes by or take the chill off the room waiting for the other stoves to reheat the home but not recommended for full time usage. In summary, I prefer the heat of cordwood. In order of preference (not by BTU rating) Fir, Hemlock, Maple, Alder (we also have Cedar locally but a waste of time for the BTU output). Fir will create the least amount of ash but a fair amount of heat per cord. Hemlock, a bit more heat but more ash. Maple a superior amount of heat but a superior amount of ash. Alder, the worst of both worlds but the easiest to split. I've learned to keep a full year of wood ahead to cure properly. Wet wood is a waste of time and effort. Over the years Ive invested a fair amount in tools and machinery to handle cutting wood. I now have my cordwood delivered in full log form and stacked by my woodshed. I use a small tractor with tongs hanging from the bucket to pick up each log to waist level (I don't bend as well as I did twenty years ago). I mark and saw the wood; the wife tosses the wood just inside the shed where my hydraulic splitter is located. I cut and split, she tosses and stacks. Actually we have a great time at it. Just dont be in a hurry and turn it in to a miserable chore. The benefits are obvious, save money, stay in shape. Besides a little hunting, fishing and camping What else is there to life anyway? By the way, help your wife make and can home made Tomato soup to make those hard working cold days worth it. Now your livin. :o)

Merry Christmas !! I had just ordered Smart-pot in 10 gallon, only $9.97 from Amazon (free shipping). I'll buy 3 blueberry bushes this spring (Walmart sells them), put 2 in SmartPot, and 1 in the ground. Didn't know that I need 2 or more blueberry bushes to pollinate each other. Info. from About.com: " Fertilizing blueberries - Blueberries don’t like too much fertilizer. Twice a year in the early spring works well. For organic fertilizer try blood or cottonseed meal, or a fertilizer designed for acid loving plants. Blueberries need friends – To get your blueberries to fruit, you will need at least two blueberry plants for pollination, three plants is even better and they need to be placed relatively close together. Also it’s a good idea to grow a couple of different varieties of blueberries, because they will produce fruit at different times and extending your blueberry season. Protect your blueberries – While growing blueberries you’ll have few pests to worry about other than birds. To protect your fruit from feathered poachers, you can cover your bushes with a light sheet or netting, a few weeks before the berries are ripe." Sam: Do you protect your blueberries from birds? If I put Smart-pot right next to the patio, hopefully there's less pests. I re-post the info. that Bluegirl wrote on pine-fines to buy from Lowe's. I would need 1/4 pine fines with 3/4 potting soil to create the acidic soil for blueberries. Bluegirl in Texas wrote: "I think Amazon has the sulfate of potash for ~ $11 still. See if your Lowes carries the mix ours does. It's "HapiGro Landscape Mix", sold in a big clear bag for about four dollars. Almost pure pine fines to look at it. Here are some photos, the bag is kind of faded, it's a mostly clear bag with white on front. dry stuff inside--looks to be mostly fine pine bark with a nugget or two of perlite. THis is some moist stuff from inside a bucket--finger for size. Pictures & info. above are from Bluegirl in Texas. THANK YOU, Bluegirl, for allowing me to post your info.