Comfrey liquid feed

How it works

Comfrey roots mine potassium from deep subsoil and concentrate it in the leaves. Fermented, it becomes a free high-potassium feed - exactly what fruiting and flowering plants need to set and swell fruit rather than make more leaves.

Recipe

Pack a bucket with comfrey leaves, weigh them down, cover, and leave 3-4 weeks until a dark liquid collects. Dilute 1 part to 15 parts water until it is weak tea colour. (Adding water from the start also works but takes longer and smells far worse.)

How to apply

Water around tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, cucurbits, strawberries and roses every 10-14 days from first flower until the last fruit.

Targets — pests

Not recorded — the field is blank rather than guessed.

Targets — diseases

Not recorded — the field is blank rather than guessed.

Supplies: Comfrey plant, Bucket with lid

Days to harvest after spraying: 0

Best months: May, June, July, August, September

Cautions

The smell is genuinely bad - keep the lid on and the bucket away from the house. Do not use on leafy crops that you want to stay leafy.

The thing people get wrong

Grow Bocking 14 comfrey specifically: it is sterile and will not seed itself across the garden, unlike wild comfrey. Three plants in a corner will feed an entire vegetable garden for free, forever.