Nice and comfrey

I read about liquid confrey feed years ago but it's only now I have my own reasonably-sized garden that I've been able to make it.

Comfrey leaves are high in potassium (good for flowering), and also contain phosphorous (good for roots) and nitrogen (good for leaves) - i.e. it provides the holy trinity of plant food requirements. To make a liquid feed from the leaves, the basic method is to chop up a load of comfrey leaves, put them in a bucket - with or without a little water - and leave them to rot down. You can also use the leaves raw, by adding them to the compost heap.

I sourced a sterile form of comfrey (Bocking 14), so the problem with self-seeding is removed. I let the plants settle in (I put them next to my compost heap so I can chuck the occasional leaf on there) and cut them down last autumn, before they died back. I chopped the leaves into a bucket, added a little water, covered the bucket and left them to rot down.

I'd read that the resulting soup stinks, but thought this was all hokum because every time I lifted the lid, I could smell nothing. Actually, it does stink - I discovered this when I decanted the soup into a bottle. In fact it honks.

I'm now the proud owner of a bottle of comfrey feed. I hope this - and my endless supply of comfrey leaves - is going to save money. Plant food is really expensive, but essential if you want good results.

To test its efficacy, I'm going to conduct an experiment. The Nepeta (Walker's Low) on the left will receive fortnightly comfrey feed, the one on the right will receive a shop-bought feed. (Ignore the fence background - one day I'll have a walled garden but just not yet!) Nepeta's pretty vigorous anyway, but I'm hoping to be able to make some comparisons on flowering and size at least.

Watch this space...