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Confused by Comfrey

paul_in_surreypaul_in_surrey Posts: 239
in Plants
I used my first batch of Comfrey Tea this morning. Before scuttling off to leave the other allotmenteers sniffing the air and wondering where I was burying dead bodies I wanted to start a new batch. Here's the confusion:

My Comfrey plants are now in full flower and the bees are loving them. But when I read about making Comfrey Tea the general advice seems to be to chop the plant almost to the ground and it will re-grow up to 4 times a year. So, do you wait until the flowers have faded before chopping down, and if so how long does that normally take. Do you (as I've been doing) just cut the bigger leaves from around the bottom of the plants and try to leave as many flowers as possible. If you chop to the ground do they flower again when they re-grow? I'm always nervous of Chelsea chopping full stop, so not sure if cutting to the ground now would be better for the bees later in the summer.
“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill

Posts

  • JellyfireJellyfire Posts: 1,139
    Comfrey is my nemesis, whatever I try to do to it is seems to to grow back stronger, meaner and in more places, its basically indestructible so you can certainly chop it right to the ground and do no harm to it. As to whether it will flower I dont know as I never let it get that far after the first flush, but I think its an early flowerer so probably not
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    While it's in flower and feeding friendly insects I'd carry on just cutting the bigger leaves for your "tea".    Once the flowers go over you can cut it right back and even dig it up and it will just keep coming.........
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • josusa47josusa47 Posts: 3,530
    I'm still using last year's comfrey tea which I made when the flowers had finished.  I'm lucky enough to have a spare fridge in my garage to keep it in.  That potassium is going nowhere, and the smell gets no worse.  I'm not sure it could.
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