However, do not plant them inside the garden, instead, plant them outside the garden barrier. One suggestion for a great location to grow comfrey is as a border to your gardens or flower beds. For this reason, you probably do not want to grow comfrey directly in your vegetable garden. It can spread aggressively and become an invasive weed, so choose your location carefully. Comfrey will regrow from even the tiniest left behind root, so once it is planted, it is nearly impossible to get rid of. Selecting the right location is one of the most important factors in growing it. Comfrey can spread through seeds or broken pieces of root. It will continue to grow even while it is flowering.Īfter frost, the leaves will die back and the plant will go dormant again until spring. It produces bell-shaped flowers that are usually a creamy yellow, but some cultivars are available in other colors such as purple, red, or blue. Comfrey will flower from late spring through the first frost. By late spring, the plant should be well over a foot tall with large leaves and hairy stems. It is not recommended to be ingested at all.Ĭomfrey will begin growing from the crown of last year’s plant in early spring. It is thought to cause liver toxicity and vein blockage. Toxicity: The FDA removed comfrey products from the market in the 2000s because of its possible toxicity.It can handle temperatures as low as -40 degrees F through 120 degrees F. hardiness zones 3 through 9 but it will grow almost anywhere. Hardiness: Comfrey will grow best in U.S.Growing season: Comfrey can be planted any time the soil is warm enough to be worked.For all these reasons, comfrey is a great addition to your garden. When the plant dies, or is chopped and dropped to use as mulch, the nutrients return to the soil where your garden plants can access them easier.īest of all, it is easy to grow, even in shady areas. Some of your livestock will happily munch away on this plant, particularly chickens and pigs.Ĭomfrey is called a nutrient accumulator because its deep tap root mines nutrients well beneath the surface of the soil, and brings them up with the plant. Some herbalists even make a healing salve out of comfrey. Better yet, it can be used as a green mulch, and it will improve the quality of your soil.Ĭomfrey can be made into a compost tea which is beneficial for fertilizing your garden. Comfrey attracts a number of different pollinators with its beautiful flowers and provides habitat for beneficial insects. Our activities currently include: Biological Plant Nursery, Educational Courses, Local Land Stewardship, Polyculture Research, Market Gardening, and Consultancy and Design.Comfrey is a permaculture gardener’s best friend because it has a multitude of uses. Growing, selling and promoting the use of plants and plant communities that have high ecological and nutritional value Practicing an open source policy, whereby we disseminate our results freely and share all aspects of our work Providing consultancy and design for landowners and farmers across Europe Providing quality education and training to aspiring growers and landscapers Providing working examples of our designs at our sites open for the public to visit Researching, designing and implementing systems on the ground We aim to develop and promote practices that provide nutritious affordable food while enhancing biodiversity and work to achieve this by: Balkan Ecology Project is a family project run by myself, Sophie and our two boys Dylan and Archie, and supported by the amazing volunteers we have hosted here over the years. Prior to that, I worked as a freelance Arborist in the UK for 15 years. Originally from the UK I moved over to Bulgaria with my family 12 years ago and set up the Balkan Ecology Project.
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