Anyone plant their potatoes in soot?
for what reason ? ???
this link might explain it
http://books.google.com/books?id=Re4UAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=potatoes+in+soot&source=bl&ots=g02C0xFNRa&sig=gHDyeolpe2wPUsMQxSmgWO8Emgc&hl=en&ei=X2HoSsukMJG0lAfYr5GACA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBAQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=potatoes%20in%20soot&f=false (http://books.google.com/books?id=Re4UAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=potatoes+in+soot&source=bl&ots=g02C0xFNRa&sig=gHDyeolpe2wPUsMQxSmgWO8Emgc&hl=en&ei=X2HoSsukMJG0lAfYr5GACA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBAQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=potatoes%20in%20soot&f=false)
Jim, at some time it's been recommended to me to plant potatoes with soot, but I can't for the life of me remember why.
plainleaf, that's an interesting book isn't it. Shows that potatoes yield well in dung, but I wonder if the soot might have benefits other than yield, because it doesn't mention quality. Lots of units I'm not familiar with too - links, bolls, ect.
What actually is soot anyway? Yeah, i know it comes from your chimbley, I mean chemically what is it?
a boll of potatoes is 6 bushels.
the soot also deters slugs.
I can't see the point either, OK, wood ash is high in potassium, hence potash, I would have thought that soot would not,as it would be almost pure carbon, great as a neutral growing medium or making diamonds, but anything else?????
Maybe someone with more than O level chemistry would like to correct me.
Do you have a source of soot Unwashed or is it an academic enquiry?
Are you a chimney sweep by any chance?
I understand that in the sooty smoggy days of old before the clean air act roses never had black spot.
Soot should be avoided in this day and age, unless you know the origin of it, as the modern smokeless fuels contain a lot of metals and chemicals and so should not be used. If you can get genuine coal soot then it should stand for at least a year to let all the matals, toxic sulpher etc to dissapate. Soot has a commercial analysis of 9% N. If you intend to apply it to the garden then it should be used at a rate of 1/2 lb to a square yard. It should be aplied as a top dressing during the period of growth and hoed in.
Another method is to put it in a hesssian sack suspended in a water butt and use the mixture as a liquid feed.
It can also be used when watering tomatoes that is intended for the show bench, it gives the tomato skin a nice deep red colour.
Slugs hate it... I was lucky enough to pick up a load of weathered soot earlier this year and have barrier lines of it around various things, not a slug has got past it yet as far as I can tell.... might try it next year with spuds as I have loads left....
chrisc
Soot is volatile material which is boiled off by the heat of a smouldering fire, plus particles of carbon. The volatiles condense up the chimney, where it builds up. It's highly inflammable; I remember chimeny fires well from when I was a kid. They were always disappointing as there were no flames (there was no excitement in a fire engine if there wasn't a dramatic fire!) but there would be great clouds of thick yellow smoke pouring out of the chimney as the stuff evaporated again. Flames on a coal fire are the hot volatiles and carbon burning off as they mix with the air. I've never seen a chemical analysis, but there must be a lot of carbon, plus hydrocarbons ('coal tar'), plus sulphur compounds, depending on how much sulphur there is in the coal, plus contaminants of all sorts. Altogether it's probably a fairly nasty mix.