You mean potash, or ash from some fire pot? Potash is a potassium salt. No smoky flavor comes from that. Wood ash is a common garden amendment, but only for acidic soil. Smoke flavor from grilling comes from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) produced in the fire, much of which is left in the ash. In principle, those PAHs can be on plants, though I think PAHs around plants mainly are deposited on them rather than absorbed by them. So I suspect that just washing them off would remove much of that smoky flavor. In general, PAHs are carcinogenic, so while you might like a little of them to add flavor, they aren't too good for you. Wood ash is not necessarily that good for plants, either.

BTW charcoal ash, from commercial pressed briquettes, is generally not recommended as a soil additive. Lots of nasty stuff is added in manufacture.

Thank you for that explanation.

We got a Solo stove which burns everything down to ash. The wood we use is Pine, Red wood, and some Apple. the fire pit is only located 10-15 feet from the vegtable garden. I will try washing them but it disheartens me that the kids wil not be able to just pull leaves off the plants and eat them. I would rather get rid of the fire pit if that is the case.

you said the PAHs would not be absorbed by the plants. recently after a bunch of wild fires there seems to be a lot of smoky wines being produced. the wineries are attributing this to the fires and all the ash left around, did they mean that it was more about the ash deposited on the grapes rather than absorbed through the soil ?

Those Solo stoves are great!

I hadn't heard that about smoky wines. Interesting. Now, in winemaking, grapes are usually crushed without washing. If they're REALLY dirty, they hose 'em down. But the dusty detritus on the grapes includes (in addition to bird poop, I guess) natural bacteria that aid the fermentation and give local character to wines. So if the grapes had a lot of fire ash on them, I guess the wine could taste like the ash.

I wouldn't worry about eating that ash. You're not eating much of it. But wood ash includes a lot of salts, and if you just throw it on soil, it can hurt the plants. The salts are soluble, though, and so will leach out in a compost pile. So if you want to use the wood ash on plants, throw it in a compost pile for a few months first.

Thats super helpful.

I was more worried about the smokey flavor from the taste point of view. My wife hates smokey falvor and we had really great tasting vegtables.

I will try it in a different compost pile and plant something with it to see how it reacts/tastes. Thanks for all your time.

I too would think that any smokey flavor is coming from something in the air rather than the ground.... fire pit, BBQ, fireplace, etc.