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Comfrey: For Good or For Evil?

I just can’t say. A week ago I was all about the comfrey. The things I read made it sound like it was indispensable in a permaculture setting. But that’s not really my yard. I want to pretend it’s my yard but no, I have a vegetable garden, a few fruit trees, some chickens and a compost bin. 

Things I like about comfrey: it draws up minerals deep in the ground through its long taproot. It is high in nitrogen so it’s great to add to compost. The leaves are large and make a good mulch. It flowers and from the photos I’ve seen, it is an attractive plant. As an herb it has strong healing properties.

Things I fear: that damn long taproot. Once it goes into the soil I may never get it out of the soil. It is invasive. It spreads. 

The things I don’t like about comfrey are the things I don’t like about bamboo. You have to be committed going in. It’s why I still have Mexican petunias sitting in pots and not in the ground. Commitment scares me.

I took the first step though. I took the six little root pieces and found six little containers to plant them in. They have to be happier in their little pots than in the envelope they arrived in which released a pungent odor when I clipped the top edge open.

So I can ease into this. I will give them a chance to get established and then I can decide how many I want to keep. I may be doing some midnight guerilla gardening in the neighborhood a few months from now. There are some new developments planned for our neighborhood. There may be a new street a few miles away called Comfrey Lane.





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