Comfrey

Grow Comfrey to produce your own plant food, to enrich your garden and support wildlife. You can add the leaves to your compost heap on a regular basis (perhaps grow your comfrey patch next to your heap for ease). The leaves can also be used to make liquid feed for your plants.  More information below

Please note that we do not list this with our other herbs as it is NOT EDIBLE.

Price for 15 seeds

SOW: in spring or autumn in seed trays, germination can be erratic.

GROW: plant out when large enough; prefers sun or semi shade but will tolerate most conditions.  Cutting back before flowering will stop it from setting seed

USES:

Grow for WILDLIFE

• Bees both short and long tongues species,
• Bumble bees are particularly fond of the nectar and pollen,
• Scarlet Tiger Moth.
• Comfrey is on the RHS pollinators plant list. 

As a garden ENRICHER,

• to add nutrients to your compost heap,
• make a liquid feed – ‘tea’ and concentrate information below
• in planting trenches (potatoes & beans),
• in potting mix
• as a mulch for fruiting plants (berries) in particular.

Support a WORMERY

• by watering the wormery with comfrey ‘tea’ about once a month
• Comfrey leaves make an excellent worm food, said to stimulate breeding, and improves the quality of the worm castings

As a SLUG TRAP

• A pile of chopped comfrey leaves left overnight be vulnerable plants will have gathered a cargo of slugs by the morning, easy to gather up and dispose of in the morning.
• Growing comfrey plants do not seem to attract these slimy pests

IMPORTANT: this plant is NOT edible.

Liquid feed Method 1: for a ‘plant or worm tea’: put about 6kg fresh cut comfrey in a net and hang in your 90Lt plastic water tub, fill with water, cover and leave for 4 weeks.  The clear liquid is ideal for tomatoes, beans, onions etcetera

Liquid feed method 2: for a concentrate:  bore a hole in the side of a plastic container just above the base & stand on bricks so a dish can be placed underneath.  Stuff the container with comfrey, squash the leaves with a heavy weight & cover.  After 3 weeks or so a concentrated black liquid will be produced.  This can be stored in a sealed, labelled bottle.  Dilute 1 part to 40 parts water before use