Wood ash?

STZ said:

Ash from that backyard bonfire would probably do more harm than good

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No, as long as it's non-processed wood that was put on a fire is the same as you would get out of a fireplace. It's not the location that has anything to do with the ash, it the wood.

tomalock he meant that back yard barn fires have trash burnt in it. like chairs trash beer cases ect. you def dont want to put any unwanted chemicals in there.

Correct, but you have to consider the heat from the fire, it will kill most if not all chemicals (that part I'm not 100% sure about), any type of paper products do have chemicals in them. But any thing a person finds in nature as far as wood and un-processed lumbar is fine (boards and such, they are nothing but dried wood cut to form) is fine to use. Just don't use any pre-cut lumbar/wood that has a green color, that is more than likely "woolmenized lumbar" treated to withstand the weather. REAL bad news to burn.
That is how I just to get most of my wood ash from a spot that I always piled scraps of lumbar over the years when building things, I'd burn it and after a week I would get what ash I needed it also had a little soil from that spot included. Of course you must lime it good. It's always worked great and my plants always had a really good root system and they were nice and healthy.

It depends on what is burned as to what the ashe winds up containing. Using plain untreated wood as in scrape limbs and old half-rotten firewood, etc.

I water my plants with swamp water, urine, and wood ash. The ash PH's the acidic black water perfectly. It's a free fert regimen and the plants love it.

I used wood ash in my first concocted hydro formula , it consisted of Peters 20-20-20 , wood ash for pH control + Epsom salt and calcium carbonate . I ran this simple mix back in the late 80s using lava stone as a medium of choice supplemented with rusty nails for iron . I still add a little aged ash to my organic gardens every year .