From the archives: Allotment Fires - A Simple Guide
Everyone loves a good fire. They’re useful on allotments for getting rid of waste, especially weeds. Weeds don’t come back when you’ve burned them. The left-over ash is good fertiliser too.
But getting a good fire going isn’t as easy as you might think. Here’s what we have learned:
You will need:
- Metal dustbin, or other suitable fire-container.
- Various tools for making holes in said Dustbin.
- Lots of newspaper.
- Lots of dry wood (such as from a pallet) in various sizes.
- Matches (and maybe some lighting fluid).
- Some bricks.
- Garden fork and spade.
- Plenty of time.
Basically, the trick is to get a good wood fire burning, and keep it going. The stuff you want rid of won’t sustain a fire – it’s too full of water, so you need to keep adding wood as well.
Fires need air, so the first step is to make a decent hole in the side of your dustbin, close to the bottom. We did this by getting the claw-end of a claw hammer into in and ripping round. Leave it as a flap – it’s handy to be able to cover the hole later.
Make another hole a bit further up the bin, and slightly further around too. This is for when there is a lot of ash at the bottom of your fire.
Next, start a fire in the bottom of the bin! Screw up some newspaper, and build around it with small bits of dry wood. Light the newspaper, and hope the wood catches. Liberal amounts of lighter fluid help here, but it’s more fun to do it without. It will definitely help to have the flap you made earlier open and facing into the wind.
As the fire starts to catch hold, add larger pieces of wood. Get a roaring wood fire burning.
Once you’ve managed that, start plonking fork-fulls of allotment waste onto the top of the fire. It should burn pretty well, and give off plenty of smoke. Let each fork-full burn off before you add another.
As you keep going, make sure that the fire has plenty of fuel in it – keep adding bits of wood. Remember – the garden waste alone won’t keep the fire going. Prodding the fire through the flap seems to help, add wood in through there as well as from the top.
When you’re done burning, let the wood burn itself out. Then leave the ashes to cool for as long as you can. When you are ready to leave, shut the flaps in the side of the bin. Shovel an inch of earth over the top of the ashes, and down the side near the flaps, to completely starve it of oxygen. Stick in some bricks to absorb any heat left over. Put the lid on the bin, and, if everything looks safe, off you go.
When the ashes have cooled, keep them in a container somewhere (at least not on the bare earth). When you are digging a bed, scatter some ashes thinly and dig them in – they make good fertiliser. Since ashes are alkaline, they are especially useful if your soil is acidic. Don’t add too much, or else the soil will be too alkaline.
— Ollie
