[adri123]

Hi.

Down the road from us there's always masses of comfrey.  I plan on filling up my trailer a few times and making a nice rich liquid feed.

Question is...what crops will really benefit?  I'm sure it's better for some things than others.  Is there a list out there?

TIA

Adri

[cadalot]

Take a look at http://www.allotment-garden.org/comfrey/index.php

[Chrysalis]

Check that you may take the leaves from the landowner, if you can.....  Ask a mate for a bit of root to make your own plants is probably less contentious!

Having said that, it's marvellous in the greenhouse for toms, peppers, cukes etc. and spuds love it.  Also good in the compost bin.  But it doesn't half pong, so beware!

[Geordie]

I made some comfrey tea from a final cut last year and forgot about it 

Stinks to high heaven but is it worth decanting into containers to use later this year?

[snowdrops]

Leaves go into the bottom of my potato trench & on the compost bin as an activator. Made into tea as said in previous post,if you end up with gallons it will benefit any plant. Depends how you make it,I normally make it without water & dilute to suit. You obviously don't end up with so much liquid to store that way. If you put it in water it is very smelly,then there's emptying the leaves out that I find a drag. But they can go on the compost at that point

[blackberryjam]

Leaves go into the bottom of my potato trench & on the compost bin as an activator. Made into tea as said in previous post,if you end up with gallons it will benefit any plant. Depends how you make it,I normally make it without water & dilute to suit. You obviously don't end up with so much liquid to store that way. If you put it in water it is very smelly,then there's emptying the leaves out that I find a drag. But they can go on the compost at that point

Got some comfrey last year for free, How do you make it without water snowdrops. I've never used it before but I know it stinks when you make it with water, someone used it on the allotment last year, it smells a bit like sewage.
If you can put up with the smell it must be worth it the plot owner had a bountiful crop.

[gavinjconway]

Just chop it up and ram it all into a plastic barrel with a small hole in the bottom. Hang it above a container to catch the drips that will start after a while.. this is strong so mix with water and use diluted.

[savbo]

I like to ram leaves into a 4 pint milk container then top up with water, put cap on and leave. Then you have the tea for diluting without too much smell....I line up the containers so I know what's the ripest

sav

[surbie100]

How do you make it without water

You might also want to try a comfrey pipe - a length of downpipe fixed to a wall, with funnel into a bottle on the bottom, a cap on the top and a weight on a string inside. The longer the pipe, the more juice you can produce. Lots of pictures/how-to's on the internet.

[strangerachael]

OR, you can chop up the leaves and spread them thickly around the base of the plants (ideally in a trench that you can water into) replace/top up the leaves every couple of weeks and you get all the benefits with none of the pong. worked wonders on my toms last year,  no other feed required.

[Trillium]

I made some comfrey tea from a final cut last year and forgot about it 

Stinks to high heaven but is it worth decanting into containers to use later this year?

It's still good though it will pong something awful  Do it on a non-windy day to lessen the aromatic impact 

[gavinjconway]

You might also want to try a comfrey pipe - a length of downpipe fixed to a wall, with funnel into a bottle on the bottom, a cap on the top and a weight on a string inside. The longer the pipe, the more juice you can produce. Lots of pictures/how-to's on the internet.

Snap to mine but a smaller version.. 

[Baldy]

When can you expect to see a 'little action' from comfrey? I planted a few cuttings last year that seemed to take ok - but a couple of them seem to have gone missing now - I *may* have turned over the area they were in...

Cheers,
Balders

[surbie100]

You might also want to try a comfrey pipe - a length of downpipe fixed to a wall, with funnel into a bottle on the bottom, a cap on the top and a weight on a string inside. The longer the pipe, the more juice you can produce. Lots of pictures/how-to's on the internet.

Snap to mine but a smaller version.. 

Yep, same-same but different. Am gradually adding pipes to the shed. I like the bucket idea, but I am so very clumsy I would tip it over at some point...and I know from this year how fragrant that makes me 

When can you expect to see a 'little action' from comfrey? I planted a few cuttings last year that seemed to take ok - but a couple of them seem to have gone missing now - I *may* have turned over the area they were in...

Cheers,
Balders

I pulled all mine out to move it, or thought that I had. Later in summer I had 3 new plants pop up in the same place. If you've turned it over, you might have more plants than you started with. It grows back from a scrap of root, though it might not be apparent yet. Mine's still in winter mode, so I have no leaves on any of them.

[cadalot]

When mine show their heads again - I'm going to extract one and chop it up and produce more to go down along my boundary along the access path - you can't have too much Comfrey