comfrey garden application via tea vs chop 'n drop vs something else?

Hi Everyone

How do you prefer to use comfrey in your garden? Seems like tea can be made (with Epsom salt and wood ash?), it can be fermented, it can be composted, you can mulch with it, perhaps other ways of using it to improve soil and plant health in the garden. I am wondering how people prefer to use it and most importantly why they prefer that method over others.

Thank you!

i prefer aerated compost tea over that nasty stinking stuff. I just mulch it or add it as a layer on top of the vermi compost to keep the humidity in and after a while it's just gone,

While I have not grown comfrey because of my arid conditions, I have read a lot about comfrey.

Just growing comfrey will enrich the soil.

It is one of the plants that I believe are dynamic accumulators.

I have two patches of comfrey growing.

I have some Bocking-14 on a hillside to help stabilize the soil, the biomass is earmarked to be chopped and moved over to be dropped around the drip line of my fruit trees.

I also have some Bocking-4 on the outside of my garden perimeter/chicken run that will be for comfrey/weed tea as well as supplementing my hens.

Hugo, do you have aerated tea recipes with comfrey you particularly like?

I compost the comfrey together with my food scraps. Then i use very well finished compost in water with molasses. It multiplies the bacteria by a million times. After 24 hrs it's done. After 48 the mycelia are peaking and after 72 hrs the amoebes and flagellates.
I use a very strong pump and watercan the microbe mix around for annuals and the mycelia mix to put around trees and shrubs. Diluted so there is plenty to ensure it reaches deeper layers as well.

Along with other dynamic accumulators around my food forest and garden, I chop and drop comfrey as mulch. Ideally (if I have the time and plentiful water), I will then wet down that mulch with compost tea or extract to help it break down efficiently. I use tea in the fall for more glues to reduce winter rains’ leaching effects, and in the spring/summer I use extract for more biodiversity and less prep work.

Ben, how does the tea function as a glue to reduce leaching from rain?

i am lucky to have a lot - i use it as mulch, i like the tea for pots in the greenhouse as it is easier to apply..

other great ideas i got off the internet years ago..

>> wrap a seed potato in a leaf or two before planting (or do the row)

>>put some leaves under the root ball when you transplant anything - the roots will benefit greatly right off the bat in the new home

cheers!

James MacKenzie wrote:the roots will benefit greatly right off the bat in the new home

<--- Love it!

According to Dr. Ingham, one of the primary benefit of actively aerated compost tea over extract is the natural glue like substances produced during the brew by microbes eating food sources, excreting, and dying/being eaten. These help stick the tea on leaves for foliar sprays, and aid soil aggregation, which helps hold soil nutrients in humus during heavy rains. Tea also has higher biomass due to rapid replication of microbes on food sources, which can be nutrient rich organic inputs that are made more biologically available by microbial digestion. Compost extract has higher biodiversity though if made with the same compost, as the brewing selects for microbes that thrive in unnaturally highly aerated water. I usually just use extract during the growing season after a few foliar tea sprays in the spring, and a fall tea spray of fallen leaves.

As a science nerd, I wanted to share this study and related research concerning dynamic accumulators like comfrey.  It's been a poorly defined term for a while, but the universities are starting to take it seriously.  The article doesn't really cover the best ways to utilize it, but the, rather, science behind the concept.  

https://smallfarms.cornell.edu/2022/04/new-findings-further-the-study-of-dynamic-accumulators/

Ben Zumeta wrote:According to Dr. Ingham, one of the primary benefit of actively aerated compost tea over extract is the natural glue like substances produced during the brew by microbes eating food sources, excreting, and dying/being eaten. These help stick the tea on leaves for foliar sprays, and aid soil aggregation, which helps hold soil nutrients in humus during heavy rains. Tea also has higher biomass due to rapid replication of microbes on food sources, which can be nutrient rich organic inputs that are made more biologically available by microbial digestion. Compost extract has higher biodiversity though if made with the same compost, as the brewing selects for microbes that thrive in unnaturally highly aerated water. I usually just use extract during the growing season after a few foliar tea sprays in the spring, and a fall tea spray of fallen leaves.

Ben, I really appreciate the level of detail in this passage. Thank you

Mac, thanks for the link to the article! Good read! I was actually reading someone's blog who said there's no scientific research to back up that comfrey is a dynamic accumulator, so it's great to see that research is coming out

Why versus?

My suggestion would be both/all

i realized after the last few weeks of transplanting i use comfrey leaves ALL the time when transplanting - second nature now but i use a LOT of it and i didn't emphasize that... i think it really helps the transplants - i have very little mortality  .. and i make comfrey tea too... i am lucky to have it growing everywhere (thank you previous owner!! ;-) does well here - temperate and moist...

i thought i would post a few pics - pretty easy... cuke, nasturtium and tomato cutting into a 7 gal  pot - they will do great... also a pic of the potatoes i wrapped with leaves when planting... 2 months later... and a pear tree that i planted with actual comfrey to grow at the base which is apparently good for the trees.. and i make comfrey salve...

so yeah - if you have the climate and the room - grow it - real useful stuff!! peace!

James MacKenzie wrote:cuke, nasturtium and tomato cutting into a 7 gal  pot

Why cucumber and tomato in the same pot?

the soil where i live is a "till plain" which is about 40% rocks and 40% clay... impossible to start growing in and really hard to dig so everything i plant (except for the trees and a couple of perennial herb beds) are in containers/raised beds. i am a serial repropagator so every broken tomato aa stem goes in a glass of water lol - i need to plant them SOMEWHERE... they do well together in crab tubs so i thought i would try a mixed pot..

a bit of an experiment - cheers!

James MacKenzie wrote:
a bit of an experiment - cheers!

Cool! I like experiments