Organic Russian Comfrey root cuttings and crown pieces for sale - May 2016

Hello all,

I have 85 pieces of comfrey root and crown left over from a shipment I dug and sold this week to a contact from the Regenerative Ag FB group. I will now offer these pieces to all of you wonderful Permies! See photos below.

I anticipate putting roots (and perhaps other plants - some Black Locust or Rosa rugosa root suckers, anyone?) up for sale here on Permies next year as well, and yearly after that. I am not a commercial grower (therefore not certified organic), but establishment of my own suburban-scale permaculture homestead is coming along nicely, and for the first time I definitely have excess to share. I recently saw my contact's post in Regenerative Ag organizing a group buy from one of the big commercial providers and thought "hey, I can provide them with some good comfrey for less $ than that!"

My comfrey is the sterile Bocking 14 cultivar of hybrid Russian comfrey. I originally purchased commercial roots over the internet 5 years ago, and my plants have been thriving and expanding ever since. In many places where I originally nursed a single plant along, I now have a small cluster. Bocking 14 is, as I understand it, slightly less deep-rooted than Bocking 4 (read: less drought resistant), but also less fibrous (read: better for chop-and-drop mulching) with higher allantoin content (read: better for herbal medicine). All Russian comfrey are sterile hybrids. They spread from their roots, and can also root themselves from cuttings of the flowering stems when used as chop-and-drop mulch. They are hardy perennials to 30" tall with lush, thick, dark green foliage and delicate pink/white borage-like flowers loved by bees (more so bumble bees than honeybees, in my observation). Plant them for thick ground cover, as a mulch maker, to attract pollinators, as a medicinal, for soil improvement, and/or for nutritious animal fodder.

It is said that they thrive in heat, but that has not been my experience. Rather, I find that they begin to droop whenever temps exceed 85, and by the end of my hot Southern summer they have almost completely disappeared, leaving only a few tiny green shoots amidst a fan of old leaves. But every Fall and Spring they burst back to life and fill my beds with massive green biomass again. My best results have been in a highly shaded spot where I also nurse cool season herbs like parsley through the year - in that spot I have chopped and dropped the vigorous growing comfrey as much as three times in one year.

You can order root/crown cuttings at $.50/piece, or have my lot of 85 pieces for $40. You pay actual shipping costs (via USPS Flat Rate prepaid box). I will ship inside a Ziploc stuffed with moist paper shreds. Best to plant right away, but they can be stored in the refrigerator for a while if necessary. I have found comfrey roots are nearly indestructible. In the past, I let a shipment sit around in ambient cool Spring temps for a couple of weeks in the box, then when I had to leave town and still couldn't plant them, I transferred them to a fridge. I returned to find frozen roots! Furious at myself, I nonetheless put the freezer-burnt, slimy pieces in the ground... and still got 80% or 90% to sprout!

Please post here and/or send me a PM with your order and address. And happy gardening, everybody!!!



full size pic on freeimage.us



full size pic on freeimage.us

P.S. I don't understand: why can't I get permies.com to actually display anything but the thumbnail image?

Okay, as of today, 75 pieces still available! I should have specified: I will sell them in minimum units of 10 pieces (at $.50 per piece) or now $35 for the entire lot. The smallest USPS prepaid flat rate box I can buy is $6.80. The next size up is $13.45, which might be necessary for someone buying the whole lot (not sure, but rest assured I won't use the larger size unless necessary.)

Just noting that my remaining roots should be fresh for another week or two...

Okay, as of today, 65 pieces still available! I will sell them in minimum units of 10 pieces (at $.50 per piece) or now $30 for the entire lot. The smallest USPS prepaid flat rate box I can buy is $6.80. The next size up is $13.45 (necessary for any orders more than 20 pieces, I'd say).

I am interested in 20 pieces or whatever will fit in the small box. Haven't figured how to "pm" yet so if you can send details on how to pay etc to ceirand7@gmail.com it should work. Thanks, Bobby

Matthew,

Thank you for the root cuttings. They arrived well packed and I have put them in the ground.

-Matt

@Matt Gregg - Glad to hear it!

@Bobby Clark Jr. - I just sent instructions to your gmail address. Look for an email from a hotmail address titled "Buying comfrey pieces off of permies.com"

If you are interested I will send you some seed from my true comfrey when I send your money tomorrow. Some folks are afraid of the true comfrey because it self sows so easily. I have some growing in a gravel walkway! But my rabbits, chickens and myself are in agreement, there ain't no such thing as too much comfrey! At least we are not there yet.
On Coe's comfrey site they say the #14 is not liked by rabbits or chickens. I'm skeptical as there is very little my chickens won't eat. Anybody have any experience with this? I plan to do my own research on this when your plants get big enough to start taking a few leaves from.

Bobby, thanks for the offer, but I have quite enough comfrey already without tempting fate with true comfrey spreading seed around my property. As for the desirability of the different strains of Russian comfrey for fodder, I would be very interested to hear your experiences. I can't say one way or another from direct experience. I plan to raise rabbits, guinea pigs, and ducks, and I plan to feed all in part on comfrey - especially the rabbits; the ducks and guineas will free range among the comfrey and everything else and can eat as little or as much as they like. But none of this has yet come to pass, so I have no results to report.

Bobby Clark Jr wrote:If you are interested I will send you some seed from my true comfrey when I send your money tomorrow. Some folks are afraid of the true comfrey because it self sows so easily. I have some growing in a gravel walkway! But my rabbits, chickens and myself are in agreement, there ain't no such thing as too much comfrey! At least we are not there yet.
On Coe's comfrey site they say the #14 is not liked by rabbits or chickens. I'm skeptical as there is very little my chickens won't eat. Anybody have any experience with this? I plan to do my own research on this when your plants get big enough to start taking a few leaves from.

I sent you a PM. Once you sign in to your account check the menu at the top of the page there's a link to "My Purple Moooseages" you should be able to get it there.

And going... and going... and gone! Thank you all for your attention to my thread. Please check back again for new threads: since this enterprise was fairly well received, I might offer comfrey roots for sale again this Fall and/or next Spring.

Until then, happy gardening, folks!