Other ways of using Comfrey

[Nature's Babe]

So useful as a liquid fertiliser, but there are other uses.- If you know of other uses or tips please feel free to add them -

Comfrey as a copmpost activator - layered in with other things it helps to heat up and speed up decomposition

Comfrey as a mulch where you are planting fruit bushes, runner beans, tomatoes etc layer on the soil top with grass clippings and let the worms take it down into the soil while you are conserving moisture.- but not around acid loving plants as it produces an alkaline residue.

Added to leafmould it produces a nurient rich liquid absorbed by the leafmould, add to potting and seed composts

In a potato trench, layer wilted comfrey cover with a little soil and plant potatoes. In trials comfrey worked better than proprietry fertilisers for potatoes.

[PLUMPUDDING]

A pile of chopped up comfrey leaves placed where you are going to have a seed bed is a good lure for catching slugs, then just clear them all away before you plant anything. This can then be put in water to make comfrey tea and drown the slugs at the same time.

Don't you find that the comfrey hasn't usually grown enough to have much to put in the potato trenches? It doesn't get going until April up here.

[Nature's Babe]

Plumpudding, that's a useful tip, Comfrey's still growing here, and I'm still picking chard but looks like its getting colder next week. You could increase your stock by splitting the crown in march or april - each piece with a growing shoot ?

[Mike Vogel]

I thoink Plum,pudding's point is that there isn't much comfrey growth by April to enable you to cut leaves, let them wilt and then put them in the potato trench. I suggest cutting a lot in the autumn and bagging it, so that you do have a special stock for using in this way. I use rhubarb leaves instead, which I pick as they grow brown in autumn. I don't know how much good it does, though. NB Rhubarb leaves have oixalic acid, which spuds like, whereas comfrey is rather more alkaline, as NB says.

[Nature's Babe]

Ah, true, a good idea Mike.

[Elle's Garden]

I don't have any comfrey, which I gather from this forum is a bad state of affairs! How much room does a crown take up when grown? and what sort of positioning requirements does it have?

[oldherbaceous]

Dear Elle, i allow about a square yard for each plant, but you could cut this down a little if need be.

As for growing requirements, well it's as tough as old boots and will survive virtually anywhere. But the better the conditions the more cuts per year you will achieve.

I give mine a top dressing of manure each year and get four or five cuts a year depending on rainfall in the Summer.

Another use for Comfrey is, to leave one clump standing when harvesting, just for the Bees, you can alternate this one at each harvest.

[Nature's Babe]

Hi Elle, if space is limited get comfrey bocking 14 which is less invasive, it likes a moist area and its roots can go down as deep as 10 ft,bringing minerals up from areas other roots don't reach, so you won't want to be digging it out choose your spot carefully. OH is right it's a bee magnet !

[Elle's Garden]

Dear OH and NB, thank you for those notes. I may have an ideal spot on my parent's land (next door), does it spread into new crowns or will it restrain itself to the area planted?

[Nature's Babe]

Hi Elle, Bocking 14 will spread but only gradually the other kinds spread more quickly, as Tony has described. Mine is a bocking 14, and as long as I cut and don't let it run to seed, its fine, to increase I divide the crown, or it can be propagated from root cuttings. If it is allowed to seed it can spread that way, but if you are cutting it to use regularly that doesn't happen.

[Tony Hague]

I may have an ideal spot on my parent's land (next door)

Indeed. If there is an ideal spot to plant comfrey, it is on somebody else's land

I have spent two years trying to eradicate the stuff from my allotment, and still haven't succeded !

[PLUMPUDDING]

I've had a very well behaved bed of Bocking 14 for years now and it hasn't spread out of the area or been a problem at all. I think I read somewhere that that variety doesn't set seed anyway, although it has nice purple flowers that the bees love.

[John]

I also have B14 and I'm sure that it doesn't set seed. It has spread a bit but that's only because I've rotovated too close to it and some bits of root have got scattered about. When it does start to send up flower shoots I take this as a sign that a cut is needed.

John

[Elle's Garden]

Thank you one and all - Bocking 14 it is, parent's land it is too (as long as I can pursuade them)!

I wonder if they would also like to house the bucket with the comfrey tea brewing?.....

[Nature's Babe]

Ellie, I didn't think it set seed either, not readily anyway, but I do leave some to flower and I think birds might have carried some seed as it has popped up in a couple of different places, I just lifted it and added to my comfrey patch while still small. no problem, it is definitely bocking 14 and not invasive.