comfrey for apple guild

Hey folks,

I just finished measuring everything out, did my base drawing and am starting to design my apple and pear guilds, they have about 12.5' radius beds that just touch and overlap barely in one spot.  I decided to start on my food forest design with these guilds as the trees are suffering and I want to build a foundation in our back yard from there and move out

With that said, I am looking at using comfrey in the guilds, and was doing some research and came across this information: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/search.php?q=comfrey&Search=Search+PlantFiles

I didn't realize there were so many options, and was wondering if anyone has specific types for use in South East Michigan.

I am grateful for any help, and thanks.

I have been reading the site too: https://permies.com/permaculture-forums/1174_0/permaculture/the-value-of-comfrey

And others, just not sure if there is a really good option, or if they all just rock the world hard

Right now i'm leaning towards Bocking 14 Cultivar: http://www.horizonherbs.com/product.asp?specific=1606

Seems like a good choice for a suburban back yard food forest.

Brandon, if you swing back by Permies at some point, it would be interesting to hear so long after the fact, what you did and how it worked out for you!

I have an apple orchard under planted pretty heavily with comfrey. It worked well for the first couple years, but this past year I had too much calcium in my soil report. I plan to move a lot of the comfrey this year and I stopped mulching the orchard with it last year. Once this years soil test comes back I can see if I was relying too heavily on the comfrey.

Josie Bartlett wrote:I have an apple orchard under planted pretty heavily with comfrey. It worked well for the first couple years, but this past year I had too much calcium in my soil report. I plan to move a lot of the comfrey this year and I stopped mulching the orchard with it last year. Once this years soil test comes back I can see if I was relying too heavily on the comfrey.

Welcome to the forums! :)

It is very interesting, can you share how soil samples have been collected? The reason I ask is that usually what we observe with comfrey is that calcium levels can get higher in the upper few (2-6) inches of soil, but they stay pretty much constant deeper.

That's really interesting about the calcium buildup, Josie. I've got comfrey around a couple of fruit trees and never thought to check what it was actually doing to the soil balance over time. Makes me wonder if chop and drop is fine in moderation but goes sideways when you're doing it heavily year after year. Curious what your next soil test shows.

I wonder if you can figure out the balance-spot. Maybe every other year you harvest the comfrey from the orchard and drop it somewhere else where it's needed.

Also, how do you move it? Whenever I "move" it, I end up with comfrey in the old spot and the new one!