Making Comfrey Tea

I know that lots of gardeners get all scientific about making various sorts of plant food from Comfrey, but my method couldn’t really be easier and it still produces a product that my plants enjoy! This is it…

First cut some Comfrey (in my case, not a lot – yet), and chop the stems in to small pieces. Put them in a bucket, preferably one that has a lid.

Fill the bucket with enough water to comfortably cover the Comfrey.

Put the lid on. This will stop the mixture being diluted with rainwater. It will also reduce the small, and the likelihood of small creatures falling by accident.

Now all you have to do is wait. The Comfrey leaves and stalks will decompose quite rapidly (hence the smell), and become a sort of thick gloopy substance much more akin to soup than to tea. I find that making it in a bucket normally takes 3 to 4 weeks. The resultant liquid if rich in the sort of nutrients that are enjoyed by fruiting plants such as tomatoes, chillies and peppers – and probably Courgettes (as if they needed any encouragement). My chillies and peppers would certainly welcome a does of it right now!

This plant is one of my Turkish Sweet Peppers. Its smaller than I had hoped it would be at this stage of the year, and so far it has only set two fruit. The battering it received at the hands of last week’s hailstorm certainly didn’t help, but since then we have had a fair bit of sunshine, so I’m hoping they will all buck up soon.