Sjoerd, i have been growing my comfrey in a large pot. I read your comments (in a separate posting) about the beneficial aspects of comfrey; ie they have a deep tap root & bring up essential minerals from deep in the soil, I realized growing it in a pot is not the thing to do!
Its a dam’ed if you, dam’ed if you don’t situation isn’t it. You do need to have the comfrey in the ground to get the minerals. The main negative is that you do not want them to seed out. This means religiously deadheading, in your garden situation. You do not want the comfrey spreading all over your precious gardening acres. Y’know I can recall when we spoke about this subject and I warned you that if you wanted to grow them, to plant them in a far corner out of the way of your gardening gardening beds. Actually to be safe, you could grow the comfrey in a distant corner at home and transplant the harvested stems and leaves to the municipal garden to make the liquid fertiliser. Of course, if you could get hold of some Bocking 14 comfrey, then there would be no seeding-out problems, as they are sterile.
@Sjoerd i was going to ask why you get rid of the flowers before mulching, but you answered it for me. I have the sterile variety, sometimes though when I have ripped off the stalk, I have bought a bit root with it and found the comfrey regrowing through the mulch.
Chuckle....right you are, Odif. It is hard to keep that plant down, as the plant so easily roots from the smallest piece of root. I clip the stalks off rather than tug on them, for the reason that I do not want to loose any of the root.
OK, what I did was manage to snag a few leaves from a Comfrey plant, not easy as I have no desire to topple headfirst into Smith Creek, not the most pristine of waterways. I placed a few leaves at the base of two tomato plants. If the Comfrey plants prosper, I may snatch a few more. Thank you for the info. Checking back, I now wonder should I also use the stalk? Should I chop it in small pieces?
GP — use the stalks also, but leave a couple of leaves on the remaining stalk. Like I said though, you need to pile that mulch on thickly... be careful though, I don’t want to hear about a water ballet taking place there.
I wisely asked "Himself" to fetch the Comfrey. I have no desire to compete with another gardener whom I seem to recall taking a dunking recently! There are several Comfrey plants yet on the creek bank. I'm only trying the leaves and stalks on about three tomato plants. We probably have at least 40 tomato plants. As if needing more, I put a cutting in water to root this morning.
Yeah, I know that gardener. He won’t forget his baptism down at the river for some time to come. Good idea to try it with only a couple of plants first. You might try making some liquid fertiliser with the comfrey as well (but beware of the smell. You can try the cutting, but I believe that the propagation method of choice is by using root-cuttings.
Sjoerd, I have at least six tomato plants thriving after I rooted suckers in rainwater, set them deep in the earth with crushed eggshells, some water and TLC. I have grown tomatoes before that way.
I have been known to throw whole eggs into the hole. I might need to try that again on one or two for comparison.
Sjoerd I still have to get that comfrey in the ground. It is bokking14, so no worries about self sowing.
I get problems with too much organic fertilizer. But I like the protein based nitrogen best for all around soil health.
