Selfsufficientish.com

I thought I might share what I've been doing for umpteen years.
We have a wood burner heater in our sitting room and I light it with newspaper and kindling (we have 1 local newspaper every week that the postman delivers)
We also have a continuous supply of home grown logs with a about 3 years worth stored (drying out)

When we get bones, pretty much exclusively chicken nowadays, the bones get boiled up for stock and then put in an old roasting tin in the top of our oven. That way they get baked and dried every time we use the oven.
Then during winter they get burned in the wood burner, a handful per night all the while we have some.

Then the ashes get spread all over my veg plots every spring.
I must have been doing it every year now for at least 15 years and it must add some NPK, probably mainly potash. Also it must do the soil some good and it certainly keeps the bones out of landfill.

Works for me too OS, all our heating at the "farm house" (does that sound a little decadent?) is wood fired - 1 combustion heater and fireplaces. Ash serves mainly as a soil "sweetener" because the ash is alkaline but it does carry good levels of Potash and essential minerals also.

Yours is probably better than mine (I presume your home grown logs are young growth) as we burn primarily old heartwood that has much less nutrient value than young growth; but we do get nice lumps of charcoal from the red gum that is great for water holding capacity.

Unfortunately we're still reliant on coal! It's the next thing on our renovating agenda, so hopefully not for too much longer. So I'm afraid it's absolutely no use in the garden. We did try making clinker paths with it but that's not good either - and horsetail loved it so they had to go.
As for any bones, I cook them in filtered water with an added tablespoon of vinegar in the slow cooker for 24 hours, freeze the bone broth in portions and repeat this several days on the trot until they become quite soft. We have a mug of this for lunch most days. The idea of a tray of bones in the oven is a great idea - I hadn't thought of that. We usually chuck the several days cooked bones in the compost but drying and crumbling them would mean we could direct their use better - although I'm not sure what goodness they have left in them by then.

Weedo wrote: ↑Mon Dec 10, 2018 10:58 pm I presume your home grown logs are young growth

Yes. When I moved here I planted up shelter belts consisting of Oleria, Griselinia, Willow, Alder and Ash. These are now coppiced in sequence on a 2 yearly basis and provides enough logs and kindling for at least one winter's fuel.
It hadn't occurred to me that potash is alkaline, that makes sense now as my soil is naturally acid but every time I test it it's pH neutral.

Green Aura wrote: ↑Tue Dec 11, 2018 8:01 am The idea of a tray of bones in the oven is a great idea - I hadn't thought of that

This started off differently. We baked the bones every time the oven was used and then put them through an old mincer to make bone meal. That's OK for small chicken bones, but impossible with lamb leg bones, so they got burnt and gradually so did the chicken bones.

Our bones go into the woodburner too. Partly because it breaks them down so they go into the soil better ( we riddle the ashes) but also because it's then not attractive to flies and vermin. Most of our own food waste goes to our compost heaps but locally food waste can be put into the general waste ( it's incinerated somewhere along the line to generate electricity we are told) and that waste does attract flys as well as leaving the bins less than plesent smelling.
I've never brought wood in my life . I have worked as a joiner for a long time and had access to off cuts and the like. I do that less now and do more gardening but that then gives me access to tree branches and similar which go into one of several wood stores for drying. I won't burn anything treated or painted as I use the ash in the garden. I mentioned in RC's hardcore thread that I had been putting down slabs . I mix some of the ash with the sand for bedding down , partly because I have more ash than the garden really needs.