OUTDOOR FIRE PITS
Extend your outdoor entertaining season with a FIRE PIT on your patio! A cozy wood fire provides the perfect place to gather 'round friends and family, providing warmth and firelight to cast away those chilly evenings outside.
As you're cleaning up small tree branches, save them in pile (covered to keep the pile drying for easier lighting, less smoky fires and higher burn temperature) to provide heat later in your fire pit rather than throwing them in the trash. You're recycling a natural resource that would otherwise rot in a landfill.
HINT: Burning trash is smelly, pollutes the air, disgusts your neighbors, makes your clothes stinky - and can actually cause health problems when you breathe in the nasty chemicals that can be emitted. So, don't burn trash, plastic, beer cans, styrofoam meat packaging, milk cartons and such in your fire pit. (Doing so may also damage your fire pit). Most homes have some fallen tree branches and other natural wood materials, and that's fine to burn in your outdoor fire pit.
FOR FIRE SAFETY do NOT burn your fire pit when it's on a wood deck or surrounded by dry autumn leaves - errant sparks and heat transfer may ignite your deck, porch furnishings, your house, etc. Also be sure you're not burning your fire pit below a tree that could catch fire. Use a great deal of common sense when burning any outdoor fire, and keep an eye on guests who are near the fire. Allow ashes and embers to cool thoroughly then dispose of them properly; burying them in your garden is a safe answer and wood ash is a great soil amendment.