Thursday, July 07, 2016

Comfrey tea

I learned about the benefits of comfrey tea for your plants, particular orchard trees, when I was reading The Holistic Orchard by Michael Phillips.  I'm really not good with all the schedules and structure he lays out, but I'm trying to improve with the hopes of getting more fruit over time.

I mentioned my interest in comfrey to Mary last year, and she said she had some - and it was no surprise that a plant offered up by Mary is one that is likely to take root and easily spread.  She gave me a couple cuttings last year, and I figured I'd see what would happen with them.


Well - they've done REALLY well - and now are lush, healthy plants with plenty of leaves for collecting!


I suppose I should also be taking cuttings, or perhaps dig them up and split them, so I can have more plants in the future.  I see a lot of mention out there in the interwebs about how people have small sections of their gardens dedicated to a comfrey patch just for adding to their compost and/or making comfrey tea.  I'm not sure where I'd put something like this - at least not without it looking weedy - but maybe if I ever get good about clearing out the area just between our yard and the pond I could encourage them to grow there, hopefully choking out weeds.


Anyhow, I collected a bunch of leaves, stuffed them into a bucket, filled it with water from the rain barrel, and now I just have to sit back and wait.  Sounds like I should cover it - perhaps to prevent the stink from being overwhelming, and perhaps to block flies.  I'll have to find a lid for this Home Depot bucket.  And it sounds like I want to wait about 6 wks, so mid August, before I can use it.  And again, I'm really worried about the stink it's supposed to make!  How bad could it get, right? ;-)


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