Comfrey in-between raspberries

[seniab]

Hi all,

I've been casting about for ways of covering the bare earth in-between the rows in my raspberry beds, and recently came across a little snippet in Andi Clevely's book about planting Comfrey in fruit beds.

My rows are 1.8m (6 feet) apart, so would it be OK to plant some comfrey in-between the rows, or will it be in competition with my raspberries? I thought that if raspberries are shallow rooting and Comfrey is deep rooting, I might get away with it.

Any thoughts/suggestions greatly received.

Cheers

[fiveravens]

I have a raised bed of comfrey running parallel to, and about three feet away from, a bed of Malling Jewel raspberries, and the raspberries certainly don't suffer from the proximity of the comfrey; the only problem is I'm forever pulling up raspberry suckers in the comfrey bed. I don't see any reason why your plan shouldn't work, and the comfrey would be a very valuable crop in itself. Make sure, though, to get the Bocking 14 comfrey, to avoid unwanted seedlings (you probably know that anyway).

[Snadger]

Sounds like a good way of growing comfrey without taking up valuable veg growing space!

[ChrisH54]

Saw this on the big dig last week, a lady had underplanted her raspberries with comfrey and said the area was weed free plus she had the added bonus of using the comfrey later.