Comfrey

Grow Comfrey to make your own natural plant food, help your garden thrive, and support wildlife. The large leaves break down quickly in your compost, so planting your comfrey patch near your heap makes feeding easy. You can also use the leaves to make a nutrient-rich liquid feed for your plants — see below for more details.

Please note: Comfrey isn’t edible, so we don’t list it with our culinary herbs.

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

WILDLIFE FRIENDLY

• Comfrey flowers attract both short-tongued and long-tongued bees, with bumblebees especially keen on its nectar and pollen.
• Bumblebees (Bombus species) are frequent visitors, making the most of the abundant resources.
• The striking Scarlet Tiger Moth (Callimorpha dominula) is also drawn to comfrey flowers.
• Comfrey is listed as a valuable pollinator plant by the RHS, so it’s a great choice for supporting wildlife in your garden.

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
• Comfrey plants that are growing 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