Comfrey

Mrs_Domino

Hi all,

I'm back for more advice and as you lot have plenty of it was wondering if I could utilise it?

I'd like to get some comfrey and, after researching it, I need to get Bocking 14 which is sold in root stock but my question is, how many do i need for a decent crop?

I have a small garden and a bed that is in part sun which the onions are doing rubbish in at the moment so I want to pull these up and put the comfrey in. I can probably spare 1 sqm, less preferably.

I haven't been here long so the soil is not great, hence the pants onions, but as comfrey roots deep I am assuming this will not matter.

Any help and advise welcome!

Pazu

Everyone says get Bocking 14. Why? We've got wild comfrey up the track. Can I not use that?

TIA Pazu

TheGardenGnome

Comfrey spreads like wildfire so be careful when planting it into a garden / bed which you have limited space in. The lady I had a melon sized root from last year estimated it will treble in size each annum. All I know is that I halved the cutting I got and shared it with my neighbour and both plants are thriving in large containers.

mrbadexample

Pazu wrote: »

Everyone says get Bocking 14. Why? We've got wild comfrey up the track. Can I not use that?

TIA Pazu

Bocking 14 does not self seed and is therefore less invasive.

Nothing to stop you using the wild comfrey, but leave the flowers and don't bring it home. Well, not unless you really, really like it.

Lotus-eater

Mrs_Domino wrote: »

I'd like to get some comfrey and, after researching it, I need to get Bocking 14 which is sold in root stock but my question is, how many do i need for a decent crop?

I have a small garden and a bed that is in part sun which the onions are doing rubbish in at the moment so I want to pull these up and put the comfrey in. I can probably spare 1 sqm, less preferably.

I haven't been here long so the soil is not great, hence the pants onions, but as comfrey roots deep I am assuming this will not matter.

Any help and advise welcome!

How big is your garden, because if it's that small, either forget the comfrey and get in manure each year, or grow some right next to the compost bin and try and use that space more productively. One sq metre will grow around one large plant, or two close together, but they tend to merge a bit anyway. Or you could put 4 at each corner and keep chopping them down, but you have to let them grow some time in the year, so they stay alive and they'll get very big then.
Any comfrey will give you a useable liquid feed, which you can add rooted weeds and nettles collected from a non polluted source to.

I have 6 plants I think and I could use double that amount of comfrey if I wanted to easily.

[Deleted User]

I have 7 plants of bocking 14 and after careful reesearch that variety is the ONLY one I would plant. I would put 2 in.

If you are interested in the uses and wider aspects of comfrey then there is a book called `comfrey past present and future` by Lawrence D Hills

I got my root cuttings last autumn and kept them in pots during winter, they went out into an area approx 8` x 4` early this spring and have settled very well already giving me plenty of growth so that I have taken a small cut and filled a mesh bag which is now in my water butt, I have also placed a little into my compost heap. I will be using it on a half allotment and also at home and it will be the staple fertiliser

valk_scot

I have ten Bocking 14 plants and they fill a bed 4' wide by 15' long, with no overlap between the leaves as they come up to flowering. I can get four cuts a year off them, with one cut of 10 plants giving enough leaves to fill a big water butt completely when packed down. Once a year I throw a bagful of rotted horse manure over them and that's it...no other care. I've had that same bed for 12 years now and only had one plant self-seed from it. The bed doesn't show any signs at all of getting too old...and it's the bed nearest to a 15' high privet hedge so it's got a lot of competition for water and nutrients. Well worth the money I paid for the baby plants all these years back.

You're presumably not going to want this sort of comfrey production though! Anyone with a comfrey bed can hack you off a root section or two with a spade tbh, you don't need to buy any. I've given away at least 50 crowns like this. Make sure it's got at least one growing point. I think the suggestion of planting it near the compost bins is excellent as it will suck up all the runoff leaching into the soil. Once it's in it's a biggish job to dig up a mature plant btw as the root gets very big and woody, with a lot of deep roots. It's a permenant thing, really.

mrbadexample

I've started a comfrey patch this year, in the wasted space between my shed, greenhouse and the rear fence:







Realistically, I can't grow anything much here, so if it can tolerate the wind & lack of light, it's all good. Best thing is it has nowhere to go from here, so can't take over the rest of the garden.

valk_scot

Looks like a great wee space for hardening off plants tbh. So hardly wasted. If that's Bocking 14 comfrey though it will end up halfway up the side of the greenhouse. Not a bad use of a bit of spare ground but you'll need to keep cutting it back.

mrbadexample

valk_scot wrote: »

Looks like a great wee space for hardening off plants tbh. So hardly wasted. If that's Bocking 14 comfrey though it will end up halfway up the side of the greenhouse. Not a bad use of a bit of spare ground but you'll need to keep cutting it back.

The wind whistles round there something rotten - I wouldn't want to put anything remotely tender in there. Once the comfrey's grown some, it should slow up the wind a bit.

How tall does the bocking 14 get then? I've no problem cutting it back - it'll just go on the compost heap if I have no immediate use for it.

Mrs_Domino

valk_scot wrote: »

You're presumably not going to want this sort of comfrey production though! Anyone with a comfrey bed can hack you off a root section or two with a spade tbh, you don't need to buy any. I've given away at least 50 crowns like this. Make sure it's got at least one growing point. I think the suggestion of planting it near the compost bins is excellent as it will suck up all the runoff leaching into the soil. Once it's in it's a biggish job to dig up a mature plant btw as the root gets very big and woody, with a lot of deep roots. It's a permenant thing, really.

Would love to but no space. I haven't got room for a compost bin which is why i thought of comfrey. I'm setting up a small wormery at the moment made from some tesco tubs but that won't supply a lot of liquid feed yet

My garden is approx 25 x 15 ft and the space for veggies etc is round the edges as DS has the grass for his toys and playhouses etc and the dog has a toilet area at the back which the wormery is going into.