Kitchen Garden Forum

For the first year I have a comfrey barrel, comfrey leaves in an onion sack weighted down in a 40 gall barrel. Heaven's don't it pen and ink. Whilst pulling some carrots up, had a brainstorm, if the comfrey water smells this strong will if fool the carrot fly, to early to say if it is a success yet, only time will tell.

Hello SH
Good idea. I think that this calls for an experiment. All I would say though is that the comfrey smell doesn't seem to last long once the solution has been watered into the soil. Also what might be a pong to our noses will be something different to CFs - might even attract them!

John

Since my comfrey established enough that I could harvest
it and make a solution/spray, I have used it on my brassicas
with huge success, and I reckon it's the awful smell that deters the
cabbage butterfly. I also use it on carrots when thinning, but I
don't know if I ever have had carrot fly. I also use herb cuttings
strewn all over any young veg growth, can't hurt. Those naughty
insects use their senses much more than we do - colour and scent.

Thanks, I never thought of that.

My first-year comfrey isn't going to produce so I made a nettle soup in a large barrel. The stink is awful but I have plenty space and the barrel is 70 metres from the house. Yesterday I was using some of the nettle soup mixed into some cow-poo soup, I got some nettle soup on my hands and what a dreadful smell. After three hot water and soap scrubs my hands still stunk.

I didn't use a bag, just tipped the nettle into the barrel, then water and stirred it daily. It's got lots of bits in it so I won't be able to use a sprayer or water it on with a rose on a watering can so I'm relying on the stink coming up from the ground.

It's horrible.

I would suggest that it is better to make Comfrey Concentrate, which has no smell or at least very little, rather than Comfrey Tea which stinks to high heaven and you would make better use of your comfrey because it is stored in capped containers you can always have it to hand when it is most needed especially at the beginning of the season before Comfrey is available. Young plants such as Brassicas thrive on a diluted solution of Comfrey Concentrate and form a superior root system which is all important with Brassicas. I always find that with Carrots that although they do not like contact with manure they do like a feed around the end of June and the beginning of July when the foliage generally shows signs of distress but not to the same extent this year with the rainfall that we have had.
JB.