Good source for comfrey?

kratos015

kratos015

Well-Known Member
I've seen comfrey mentioned numerous times when researching no-till growing, but never anywhere to actually source the plants or even just the leaves themselves.

Would anyone be so kind as to point me in the right direction for where to grab some comfrey plants? Any advice for taking care of them? I hear they can be quite invasive after a while and start to really take over, but I live in the middle of the desert so I just want to be sure I don't muck things up.

I'll keep lurking around on google, but I was hoping I'd get some good advice from some of you guys.

Thanks :)
 
Rasta Roy

Rasta Roy

Well-Known Member
Not sure how well it'd grow in the desert, but definitely plant in an area of land you don't use for anything else. It's a good plant for mining nutrients out of an area you don't use, and bringing them to an area you do. Either by applying it directly as a top dressing, or composting and then mixing into soil.
 
kratos015

kratos015

Well-Known Member
Wow thanks a bunch for the replies guys, very much appreciated!

Rasta Roy said:
Not sure how well it'd grow in the desert, but definitely plant in an area of land you don't use for anything else. It's a good plant for mining nutrients out of an area you don't use, and bringing them to an area you do. Either by applying it directly as a top dressing, or composting and then mixing into soil.
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Ohh ok so I definitely wouldn't want to make Comfrey a cover crop for anything because it would uptake the nutrients in whatever medium it's planted in if I understand correctly? I hear it's got good NPK values and even some trace minerals and such, does that happen to come from the result of the comfrey mining nutrients in the soil or does that occur naturally? Because if it's the former and not the later perhaps I'll want to look into having containers with the same soil mix I'm currently running? Just want to make sure I understand what you're saying correctly so that I can apply everything correctly. Thanks again for the help!
 
Rasta Roy

Rasta Roy

Well-Known Member
kratos015 said:
Wow thanks a bunch for the replies guys, very much appreciated!



Ohh ok so I definitely wouldn't want to make Comfrey a cover crop for anything because it would uptake the nutrients in whatever medium it's planted in if I understand correctly? I hear it's got good NPK values and even some trace minerals and such, does that happen to come from the result of the comfrey mining nutrients in the soil or does that occur naturally? Because if it's the former and not the later perhaps I'll want to look into having containers with the same soil mix I'm currently running? Just want to make sure I understand what you're saying correctly so that I can apply everything correctly. Thanks again for the help!
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All cover crops nutrients come out of the soil! The idea with cover crops is, you plant the crop, it pulls up nutrients, then you chop the cover crop and til it into the soil where it releases those same nutrients in a more plant uptakeable form, also as your green manure (the term for comfrey, alfalfa and other cover crops) breaks down it releases humic and fulvic acids that help unbind other elements in the soil and make them uptakeable by the plant.

In my opinion, cover cropping a container is kinda pointless, I would grow the comfrey separately and then harvest it to make compost to mix into your soil, or to just top dress into the soil. But I personally wouldn't bother with a cover crop unless you're growing in soil beds, or the actual ground. Container gardening isn't the best for recreating some of the same organic techniques developed for big outdoor crops.
 
hillbill

hillbill

Well-Known Member
New to comfrey but got a couple and plan to make a colony outdoors. The plants are very inviting somehow.
 
W

Wetdog

Well-Known Member
Horizon Herbs is where I got my Bocking 14 cultivars some 7 years ago. Good place, all organic. Do NOT get the wild, seeded comfrey, it can be really invasive. The Bocking cultivars are sterile and stay where you put them. I run the Bocking 14. There is also the Bocking 4.

Comfrey does not do well in pots for any length of time. Fine while you're preparing a spot in the ground, digging the hole and adding rich organic material for starting. The roots can reach 14' deep, so pretty much wherever you plant it, it's there forever.

They like a LOT of water, so pick the lowest, dampest spot you can. Plant no closer than 2' apart. A 3' tall and 3' wide comfrey plant is normal and they can get bigger than that.

They grow fast. I'm about a week away from my 3rd harvest of this year. Have 12 plants and just about all of it goes to the 5 worm bins that are going now. I let the worms do all the work and just top dress the VC. The worms LOVE it. It's like free pizza to them.
 
Crab Pot

Crab Pot

Well-Known Member
I planted these Bocking 14 early last summer. They were from root cuttings, taken from some other comfrey on the property. The original root cuttings were also purchased from Horizon Herbs. It always blows my mind how much biomass they produce. I'll chop this now and they'll be back to about this size in a few more weeks. It depends on the weather but I usually will get four to six harvest a year.


IMG_3442.JPG
 
Rasta Roy

Rasta Roy

Well-Known Member
Crab Pot said:
I planted these Bocking 14 early last summer. They were from root cuttings, taken from some other comfrey on the property. The original root cuttings were also purchased from Horizon Herbs. It always blows my mind how much biomass they produce. I'll chop this now and they'll be back to about this size in a few more weeks. It depends on the weather but I usually will get four to six harvest a year.


View attachment 3972331
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Beautiful garden spot friend!
 
greasemonkeymann

greasemonkeymann

Well-Known Member
Rasta Roy said:
Do grow comfrey! Just not in the same pot as your pot. In my opinion.
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ohh hell no..
comfrey is one of the few that can WAAAAY outgrow a cannabis, like not even close.
in fact I've grown all sorts of legumes, and beans and i thought those grew fast?
comfrey grows faster than anything I've ever seen, with the exception of bamboo.
i just cut a leaf yesterday that was probably 18 inches long and probably 8 inches wide.. biggest damn comfrey leaf I've ever seen, and it's maaaybe 10 days old?
if that. the stem was the diameter of a quarter.
i gave them my amended compost soil mix and this thing went nuts, dug a 2 foot hole and filled it with my soil and I've never seen a comfrey grow this quick and as big.
but given a good soil and LOTS of water and these lil bastards can grow FAST, damn near like kelp
only thing that'll kill em is no water, they drink it UP
 
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slow drawl

slow drawl

Well-Known Member
I've had mine in for 2 years now, the growth is prolific to say the least. The six I have are perfect for my size gardens, I'm a big composter. I just took the 4th cutting a couple days ago for this season. Here's a pic from 4-19 each cutting has been about this size. It's the first thing to pop up in the early spring and one of the last to go down.20170419_085245.jpg
 
Thai_Lights

Thai_Lights

Well-Known Member
This thread has taught me I'm growing comfrey and I didn't even know it. I live in the most rainy city in the PNW and it grows like a weed without any maintenance. Adding some to the compost pile tomorrow. Catch 22 because the bees love it so might not hack it to the floor.
 
greasemonkeymann

greasemonkeymann

Well-Known Member
Thai_Lights said:
This thread has taught me I'm growing comfrey and I didn't even know it. I live in the most rainy city in the PNW and it grows like a weed without any maintenance. Adding some to the compost pile tomorrow. Catch 22 because the bees love it so might not hack it to the floor.
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well, hack it even to the root and that plant will laugh at ya my man
it's sorta like roses
i wanna say it was called coppicing?
i can't remember..
meh, ok the OCD part of me has to know now, so i'm gonna look it up.
alright.. lets seeeee.......
ok.

yea, i guess coppicing is an English term for the concept/ technique of pruning to encourage growth.
anyways, my rambley point is simply that roses tend to actually increase growth after coppicing, and comfrey does as well.
in fact comfrey may be queen at it
they also say that you want to do that before it tries to flower, i can't remember exactly why
i do know that fr whatever reason when it flowers it tends to direct more of it's energy to that rather than it growing new leaves.
but on average even if you hack it down to the soil the time it takes to send up new leaves is overnight, and a full sized leaf will probably take less than a week.
i harvest my comfrey plants every Saturday in the summer.
given full light and water and they'll just go nuts
 
Thai_Lights

Thai_Lights

Well-Known Member
The person I bought my house from is an older Portuguese lady she took super good care of the lawn. I will chop that comfrey down low and report back on how long it takes to grow back.
 
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