Comfrey

[Tomatoking]

I wanted to add a section to my blog about tomato feeding. I do know a lot of people on here use Comfrey, and I really would welcome your advice.

I tend to recommend a standard tomato feed for people new to growing, or with just a few plants. I am lucky in that I have a good supply of manure to dig into my beds, so I just use it as a booster, as and when I feel it is needed. However, I do feel I need to be slighty more organic.

A few things I would like to know are:

Do you use it because it's cheaper, or organic, or both.
How much space will it take up.
How long from planting to first harvest (I understand you can harvest 5 times a year)
What rate do you mix it at.
Do you use it on all your crops.
Any other comments.

I know I could find many of these answers on the internet, but there is nothing better than advice from the 'horse's mouth', as it were.

Thanks in advance.

Mr TK

[chris]

Two Sheds just posted this: http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...34-post23.html

Links to a site with info, not sure if that'll help as I've not read through it properly - but will watch with anticpation as I'd like to start using it too!

[Tomatoking]

Thanks for that Chris, I know TS is an avid user of comfrey. I will put some basic info on from sites like that one, but it would also be nice to have comments to go with it from end users.

[chris]

I can't find the post, but I know that she uses (I think?) 2l drink bottles, just squirts a glug after a week or so of festering in the watering can, tops up with fresh leaves and then tops up with water - sounds great.

I'll be using it as it's organic, and obviously cheap !

[zazen999]

I use it because:

It is natural and won't leave any reside in the soil
It grows when it is needed and doesn't need storage.
It can be used in different ways, as a mulch, in the planting holes, as a tea
It smells great when cut [even though smells putrid when rotted down]
It doubles up as slug prevention when laid straight on the soil
Once you have it, it's free

For my comfrey pipes, I dilute it about 1/10 with waterbutt water.
For the greenhouse, the same ish...I keep it in a milk carton and top the water up once I use it.

I use it for all fruiting crops. For flowering or leave crops, I do the same with nettle tea [these are mainly at the lottie anyway so no need to have any at home].

I bought 6 plants 3 summers ago. I put them in one place and moved them to the compost heap a few weeks later. I still get new plants from the original location and these are dug up and given to fellow lottie holders every year.

I have all 6 plants and have taken cuts from them about 4 times already this year - the more you take the more they grow. They are about 3ft tall again now.....and I can take enough to refil the comfrey pipes and to cover about 2m square of soil each time.

I have also dug a couple up and taken cuttings, so will have plants for the schools that I am working with soon; and I will be teaching them about it for next season. I'll keep chopping the roots up and will expect to make 20-30 plants from the original 2 cuttings. It's very easily multiplied up once the first stock is growing.

[Alison]

I use it in the following ways:

a) leaves direct into planting hole

b) on compost heap

c) shove a load in a plastic container (often a 2l pop bottle) and top up with water. This is then left for a couple of weeks and the liquor diluted 10-1 for use on fruiting plants.

Note I only really use this on fruiting plants but make a similar brew with nettles for leaf crops eg cabbage etc.

Use it cos it's cheap and easy and doesn't involve me having to go to the shops. I grow my own comfrey at the lottie but also have been known to nick a load of it from the canal bank up the road where it's rife.

[falkon]

I followed some discussion of comfrey from last year and some one said that comfrey of type "blocking 14" is the only good type for this purpose which is grown from root cuttings, and the comfrey raised from seed is no good...
Maybe some one else will enlighten us a bit more on this

[zazen999]

Bocking 14 produces sterile seeds, so it doesn't spread.

All comfrey will have the nutrients though, due to their long roots - they dig deep and bring them up for us to use by cutting the leaves.

[Tomatoking]

Thanks Zazen and Alison, just what I wanted, keep em coming folks.


Mr TK

[Mac]

Hi folks, I take it you can use the yellow flowered wild comfrey in the same way? sorry for dum question, but have just realised that there is a patch out the front of my house!

[teakdesk]

All comfrey will have the nutrients though, due to their long roots - they dig deep and bring them up for us to use by cutting the leaves.

I've always wondered about this....

If comfrey is finding nutrients deep in the soil, bringing them up and trapping them in their leaves for us to cut and use those nutrients elsewhere, then after a year or two the nutrients will be depleted.

How do you replace those nutrients deep in the ground for comfrey to find in the future?

In other words, comfrey fertilises my plants but what fertilises the comfrey?

[zazen999]

I've always wondered about this....

If comfrey is finding nutrients deep in the soil, bringing them up and trapping them in their leaves for us to cut and use those nutrients elsewhere, then after a year or two the nutrients will be depleted.

How do you replace those nutrients deep in the ground for comfrey to find in the future?

In other words, comfrey fertilises my plants but what fertilises the comfrey?

I presume rain and roots as they grow will search out further nutrients....I can ask the Comfrey experts if you like....and see what they say....

[Shadylane]

Maybe the comfrey fertilisers the comfrey. I let mine die down last year (as it was the first year) and mulch itself. I just left it to rot down into the soil.

[Tomatoking]

In answer to teakdesks question, I have found two bits of information.


'Older plants become less efficient, so every 3�4 years lift and divide the clumps, planting back the only the youngest and these will be more productive.'

'Comfrey (Symphytum x uplandicum) a robust herbaceous perennial plant, that will keep growing and supplying you with fertilizer for up to 20 years. It produces a deep tap root reaching as far as 10 feet underground. The large hairy leaves grow in a clump which gives rise to thin flowers between May and August. The leaves die back in the winter and nutrients are stored in the roots for next years growth.'

So not too much to worry about, as most crops will not have roots that deep.

Mr TK

(Thanks for all your posts so far.)

[Two_Sheds]

What rate do you mix it at...Do you use it on all your crops.

A slosh at a time (usually whatever I can get out of the 5 litre containers I use). Yes, on all crops pretty much: I just add it to the watering can once a week.

2l drink bottles

5 litre if I can get them (squash or water bottles)

the yellow flowered wild comfrey in the same way?

I was about to say 'no such thing' ... but I've found it's confined to the north: Symphytum tuberosum

How do you replace those nutrients deep in the ground for comfrey to find in the future?

The final cut of the year (Sept) is left around the comfrey plant, to replenish it