Free Fertilizer - How to Make Comfrey Tea

Hi, I'm Gardener Scott. Comfrey is one of my favorite garden plants. One of the reasons I like it is because it makes an excellent organic liquid fertilizer. Join me as I show you how I make comfrey tea. Comfrey is a really nice plant that you should probably consider growing in your garden. For those that practice permaculture it's known as a dynamic accumulator. That's because its roots go down deep into the ground and pull up nutrients and minerals from the soil and then they accumulate in the leaves and when you take those leaves and you make a tea you now take the minerals and the nutrients, infuse that water, and now the comfrey tea can be used to fertilize all of the rest of your garden plants. Comfrey is a perennial plant that will come back year after year and in good conditions it'll be about three feet wide and about three feet tall. In the early spring, I like the flowers that'll pop up from the top. They attract a lot of insects, but for making tea I'll actually harvest the leaves before the flowers form. There are little hairs all over the leaves and that can cause skin irritation in some people. So I recommend using gloves when it comes time to harvest the leaves. With your gloves on, easiest way to harvest the comfrey leaves, just to reach towards the base of the plant, a gentle twist and tug, and you'll release the stem from the plant. It's gonna take place pretty quickly. Just a twist and a tug and you're harvesting the comfrey at the base plant. Another option is to go in with pruners and just prune off these same stems of the leaves. I just harvest the outside edges. There's often some smaller growth at the interior of the plant. To make the tea, I primarily just want to use the leaves. So I actually come in and prune off or just snip off the stems so that these wide leaves are all that remain. And I just begin stacking these leaves in my bucket, and I'll fill the bucket with as many leaves as I can fit. With the leaves firmly packed into your bucket you can now add water. Add enough water to fully cover the leaves. You'll see some people recommend taking a brick or a piece of wood to weigh down the comfrey, but I don't necessarily see that as required. These leaves will start to break down almost immediately and when it comes time to use the tea you've got to fish out a brick or a big piece of wood. So you can just leave them in the bucket, cover it tightly. I suggest marking what your bucket is so you don't mix it up with anything else. And then we'll set this off to the side in a nice secluded, relatively sunny location and allow it to decompose and start to ferment. By being selective in pulling off the larger outer leaves, you can leave some of the smaller developing leaves on the plants. This will help it recover more quickly and will give you more harvests during the year. You can use old leaves and the stems as a great addition to compost piles or they make a wonderful mulch just used by themselves in the rest of your garden where these leaves and stems will break down and add that wonderful nitrogen and potassium to your soil. After three weeks the leaves have steeped into the water and this concoction is ready to use as comfrey tea. Leftover leaves are great addition to the compost pile. In the same time it's taken to make our comfrey tea, the plant has recovered nicely and it's on its way to producing another harvest of wonderful leaves. The comfrey tea can be a little strong to use directly on the plants undiluted. So what I do is actually blend it with water. I like to use a three to one ratio. So I'll take one part of the comfrey tea and then add three parts of water. In a gallon jug, that means about a quarter of the jug, one quart, is comfrey tea. And then I fill it up to make an entire gallon of comfrey tea. You can place the liquid in a labeled jug and it's now it's ready to use in the garden. I use that diluted comfrey tea for most of my garden fertilization, particularly peppers and tomatoes seem to really respond well. For young plants and seedlings, I'll dilute the comfrey tea even further. I'll take that gallon of diluted comfrey tea, split it in half and make two gallons, so it's half strength. Having more than one comfrey plant allows you to harvest the leaves on a regular basis and produce a lot of comfrey tea. Using comfrey to fertilize your garden plants is easy. And there you have it. How to make comfrey tea. If you have any comments or questions, please let me know below. If you haven't subscribed to the Gardener Scott channel, you can do so now. If you like the video, you can give me a thumbs up and share it. i'm Gardener Scott. Enjoy gardening.

Channel: Gardener Scott

Views: 106,852

Keywords: comfrey, how to make comfrey tea, comfrey tea, what is comfrey tea, gardening, how to use comfrey, make organic fertilizer, gardenerscott, gardener scott, benefits of comfrey tea, how to make compost tea, dynamic accumulator, comfrey in permaculture, permaculture plants, free fertilizer, homemade fertilizer, homestead garden, homestead fertilizer, easy fertilizer, best fertilizer, comfrey plant, compost tea, organic gardening, how to make organic fertilizer at home

Id: lce330rsG38

Length: 8min 26sec (506 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 13 2018