Permaculture, Homesteading, and Community Building // An Overview of the Healing Herb Comfrey

Hi everyone! Today I want to do a spotlight on my favorite plant, comfrey. I first learned about comfrey on the farm that I WWOOFed on in New Zealand. We would add comfrey leaves to big barrel full of horse manure, fill the barrel with water, and in a few weeks we would use that compost tea to fertilize the lime fields. Over the years I've learned more and more about how diverse and abundant comfrey can be in a permaculture farm. A few months ago I ordered 70 root cuttings of comfrey from Coe's Comfrey and CHANGE Farm, put each cutting in a pot of soil, covered each cutting with 2 inches of soil, and watered them every other day. Now, I have 70 beautiful and large comfrey plants. Last week some friends came over for a garden potluck and we planted about 40 of these plants on our hillside. It was a beautiful day and I am so excited that these comfrey babies are in the ground and growing!

How to grow

• Soil - best in moist, fertile soils, but will grow in most soils
• Climate - best in full sun and cooler environments, and is frost and drought tolerant
• Propagation - most comfrey is grown from root cuttings and crown divisions, which can be bought from comfrey growers online and in some nurseries
• When to plant - best to plant root cuttings or crown divisions in the spring, but can be planted as late as October
• Spacing - 3-4 feet apart depending on desired density
• Lifespan - perennial plant that can live longer than 20 years if well cared for
• General care - keep the space around comfrey well weeded, harvest comfrey regularly for continued leaf growth, and fertilize with organic compost annually

Benefits (there are so many!!!)

1. Adding comfrey leaves to a compost pile will "activate" the compost pile and speed up the process
2. Comfrey leaves have a high protein content (as high as legumes), and can be used as food for farm animals (my chickens are eating wilted comfrey leaves that I harvest for them)
3. Comfrey has an allantoin content (a cell proliferant and skin strengthener) in its roots and leaves that have been used for centuries in folk medicine for healing wounds, sores, burns, swollen tissue, and broken bones (its nickname is "knit bone" plant)
4. Comfrey is a dynamic accumulator because it has roots that can be 8-10 feet deep and will draw up minerals and nutrients that are inaccessible for many other shallow-rooted plants; comfrey leaves can then be brewed to make a compost tea that is high in these minerals and nutrients to then be fed to other plants
5. Other medicinal properties include being a demulcent, astringent, pectoral, vulnerary, mucilaginous, styptic, and nutritive

Recipe

I have been making comfrey compost tea for a while, and it has helped my plants grow like crazy! Note, this compost tea is not for human consumption ;-)

• Harvest comfrey leaves with scissors or a knife and chop or rip up the leaves into smaller pieces
• Get a 5 gallon bucket and fill the bucket halfway with comfrey leaves
• Fill up the bucket with water
• Add a brick on top of the comfrey leaves so they stay submerged under water
• Cover the bucket
• Allow the comfrey to soak in the covered bucket for at least 3 weeks in a space out of the sun and not too close to human noses (it's stinky!)
• After 3 weeks, strain out the leaves and dilute the compost tea with 6-10 parts water to every part compost tea (depending on how strong you want your compost tea)
• Apply the diluted compost tea to your plants at the base
• Your plants will thank you for all of the nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, silicon, calcium, iron, iodine, and other minerals that you are feeding them!

Fun Facts

• There is controversial research about the pyrrolizidine alkaloids in comfrey being carcinogenic and damaging to the liver, therefore there is a ban in the US on orally ingested comfrey products
• The alkaloid is not found in the dried herb, therefore comfrey tea is still drunk by many
• Comfrey creams and ointments applied topically are safe to use
• Comfrey is so effective in aiding new cell growth that it should not be used on deeper cuts until these cuts have started their own self-healing process because the use of comfrey on deep cuts causes excessive cell growth inside the cut which leads to a raised scar
• Comfrey is the only land plant that we know of that sources and stores Vitamin B-12 from the soil

Sources

https://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/afcm/comfrey.html
http://www.coescomfrey.com/
The New American Herbal by Stephen Orr