At home, I only ever burn wood on the fire. Not sure it’s good, but I tend to add the ash to my compost. But on new year’s day, I finally got around to brushing my chimney, with a resultant bag of soot. So what to do with soot ?

Various websites talked about allotment holders taking soot (including from coal fires), and using it to deter slugs, and to darken the soil and improve heat retention. http://gardenmonkeybookflange.blogspot.com/2008/06/old-soot-secrets.html. Others question the presence of toxins. I think I’ll try my soot on slug duty.

But as ever with the Internet, this led me to a far more interesting topic, about uses for ground charcoal, best explained on the following site : http://www.bidstrup.com/carbon.htm

This highlighted that there were large populations supported in the Amazon delta before the Spanish arrived, on fertile land surrounded by infertile land. The secret was finely ground charcoal, and whilst this works best with a mix of bacteria in a tropical location, it can improve soil fertility in a temperate climate too.

So that would be a good use for the burnt twigs after the storm kettles have been busy down the patch. Just need to grind them down to a powder.