Comfrey is one of those herbs with multiple uses. Over the years people have used bruised comfrey leaves as a compress to sooth sprains and bruises and to reduce swelling on injured body areas. Some studies even show that comfrey may help ease osteoarthritis pain. Comfrey leaves can be infused and then used as an excellent garden fertilizer (although the smell of infused comfrey water is not at all nice FYI).
In the past comfrey was used as an aid for treating gastrointestinal illness BUT note that we now know that comfrey can be incredibly toxic when ingested and cause serious liver damage so don’t eat it for any reason.
That said, plants don’t have livers so using comfrey as a compost crop is perfectly safe. In fact, comfrey is so nutritious for plants that even if you don’t use it for anything else, many agree that comfrey is worth growing just so you can specifically make nutrient rich compost with it. As an additional benefit, comfrey is pretty much trouble free and easy to grow and its a prolific plant. You can cut off comfrey leaves many times during the growing season because it’s such a prolific grower; you should get many crops worth in a season.
To make your comfrey compost…
Comfrey is not all that different from other compost adventures. In this case you’ll just need to layer whole comfrey leaves with the other plant material in your compost bin. Since you’re using whole leaves you may want to add a layer of already prepared compost from the base of your old/other compost pile because this will help the leaves to break down quicker.
IF you don’t want to deal with making a pile of comfrey compost you can also try tucking some comfrey leaves under and around plants as a natural mulch. Of course the leaves will rot down, and as they do so great nutrients will be released into the soil and your plants.
[image via wiki commons]
Post from: Blisstree