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Comfrey

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  • UpNorthUpNorth Posts: 376
    I think there are more worthwhile plants you could grow in a pot.    in order to make comfrey 'tea' for fertiliser in any kind of worthwile volume i would think a dozen plants.  to give you some idea, i harvested maybe 20-30 plants of Alkanet ( similar) last year and by my very rough maths, i think from a single plant, you might make one watering can of feed in the year. 

    I'd strongly urge you to buy a liquid fertiliser and a nice plant for the pot.  
  • UpNorthUpNorth Posts: 376
    ..........you still have to make sure the soil is fed around the comfrey to maximise it's worth.
    i can testify to this.  two places i planted the same plants (from seed).

    the shady and less fed has struggled.  (despite being next to compost heap).  I put the remnants of sieved compost as mulch onto a comfrey in a more sunny location and it has romped away and flowered. not sure the other one is even alive.  

    i think it's a combination of sun and feed....i'm convinced the feed was helpful to grow comfrey well....to be honest I won't be bothering with comfrey Tea again.  i put the leaves into the compost now.


  • josusa47josusa47 Posts: 3,530
    When I plant tomatoes, I stuff two handfuls of chopped fresh comfrey in the bottom of the planting hole.  The toms seem to like it.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    Useful to know. Thanks for that.
  • ThankthecatThankthecat Posts: 421
    I'm lucky enough to have a friend with horses who lets me collect as much poo as I want. Some goes in the compost heap, some in its own bin with straw and some on my comfrey patch. I couldn't tell you how many individual plants are in the patch, because it's so dense, but I make enough liquid feed from them to feed the whole garden. 
  • Blue OnionBlue Onion Posts: 2,995
    Grow the sterile variety next to your compost bins.. then it can pull up the goodness that leaches out from the bottom of your pile.
    Utah, USA.
  • As an alternative to comfrey for making liquid feed, has anyone used nettles?
  • As an alternative to comfrey for making liquid feed, has anyone used nettles?
  • Oops.. I failed to read the post above mine first :)
  • josusa47josusa47 Posts: 3,530
    josusa47 said:
    Most annual plants are shallow rooted.  Comfrey gets its roots down deep and takes up nutrients, particularly potassium, thus making them available to plants which would otherwise not be able to reach them. 
    I've been trying to find out how true that is as I've read conflicting advice. Some sources say that the deep roots don't do much except keep the plant alive in drought periods. The theory is that comfrey isn't a huge amount better than other plants in terms of storing nutrients in the leaves it just happens to be very productive in making large leaves which are good for the gardener to harvest. So if that's the case you still have to make sure the soil is fed around the comfrey to maximise it's worth.
    Just had a thought about this.  Some plants compete by producing compounds that are toxic to neighbouring plants, it's called allelopathy.  You wouldn't want to make liquid feeds out of those!  Maybe the traditional nettle and comfrey feeds and compost came about, not because they are exceptionally nutritious, but because they are benign.

    It would be useful, wouldn't it, to have a list of which popular garden plants are allelopathic?  I wonder if anyone publishes one?  Companion planting in reverse.  I feel a Google session coming on.
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