After a week of summer weather and day of unbroken blue sky, we finally got round to having a barbeque last night. Rather than break out the charcoal for this one we used up a lot of the woody trimmings we have generated in the garden over the past couple of years, along with a few freshly cut branches from our monstrous rosemary bush to scent the smoke.

This frees up a decent chunk of space in the front garden where we had been storing it but the main reason was to give us a purer grade of ash. I do not know what goes into commercial BBQ charcoal but, from the petrochemical smell as you light it, I am sure it is not just pre-cooked wood. We will sprinkle some around the plants that like a slightly more alkaline soil (possibly pre-mixed with some compost, as we want it contributing to the mineral richness of the earth, not blowing onto the leaves) and mix the rest into the compost heap where it can add further goodness the large pile of trimmings I ground up and put on there yesterday.