Comfrey: Grow Your Own Fertilizer

Comfrey has many wonderful uses for healing and in the garden. In this post you’ll find five different ways to use comfrey as a fertilizer. I’ve also included some easy growing and harvesting instructions to make sure you don’t end up in a prickly situation.

Comfrey is a hardy herb (or weed, depending on your perspective) and it isn’t easy to get rid of once it’s planted, so knowing where and how to plant and harvest comfrey is important. Once you hear about all its wonderful uses in the garden and its NPK ratio, though, you’ll probably seek out the perfect spot to forage for it or plant it around your yard.

How to use comfrey in your garden:

Compost activator: Comfrey is an excellent addition to any compost. It will not only enrich your compost but will also encourage the pile to heat up, speeding up the composting process. This is particularly important if you have lots of carbon-rich material in your compost (dry brown material like twigs, straw, dry grass, etc.) Simply place alternating layers of fresh comfrey leaves and other nitrogen-rich material (fruit and veggie peels, etc.) with carbon-rich material (twigs, dry grass and hay etc.) to make a rocking compost pile. Don’t overdo the comfrey though, or it will break down quickly into a dark gooey liquid and can heat your compost pile too quickly or add too much moisture to the mix.

Next: Liquid fertilizer and more!

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Fred H.

5:57AM PST on Jan 27, 2013

Thank you Alisa, for Sharing this!

January 27
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Victoria P.

1:15PM PDT on Sep 2, 2012

Thanks for the tip about using comfrey tea against powdery mildew! And just fyi I've heard not to drink comfrey tea as the prickles can be dangerous to the lining of one's stomach.