Picture of Organic 1 year old comfrey root, Bocking 14 Cultivar.
We have grown & distributed thousands of comfrey starts to people over the years.
We ship out nice sprouted plant cuttings year-around!
Comfrey roots and leaves contain the valuable cell-proliferant allantoin. Salve speeds healing quite noticeably. Contains PAs. By popular vote here at Horizon Herbs, the most useful medicinal plant in our entire garden (see my book "Making Plant Medicine" for more on this). This year, besides making medicine from the dried root, we used the leaves for curing our goats of scours. Furthermore, we had great results this year making the fresh leaves into biodynamic tea, which we apply to our potted plants to increase vitality, growth, and to green up all those leaves! Excellent ingredient for compost piles--fresh leaves compost fast and make a nitrogen-rich compost! Organic, farm-derived, vegetarian and free of cost.
How do I plant it? You take the cutting out of the bag of moist coir and plant it with the roots down in the ground and the crown up toward the light. Firm the soil around the cutting and leave a bit of the crown and any leaves up out of the soil and in the light. Water it after you transplant it. Comfrey is not only a cell proliferant to human or animal tissue, it is a cell proliferant to its OWN tissue, so it will grow agreeably fast. If you get several cuttings, plant them from 1 to 2 feet apart, in regular garden soil, in the full sun to part shade. Comfrey will suffer if it gets too dry, so water it weekly, at least. Plant anytime ground can be worked.
How about the ordering and shipping details? Comfrey is shipped in all seasons, so be careful when you order it--if you are frozen up don't order it--it will come about a week after you order it--so wait to order until you and your ground are ready! We offer comfrey at a very inexpensive price and therefore do not backorder this item--its grab as grab can when the grabbing is good! At checkout, chose "plants" shipping. We ship almost exclusively in the large priority mail box. If for some reason you have no mail receptacle then tell us so we can ship via UPS!
Can I plant it in a pot? Comfrey pretty much hates growing in pots, and if you want to kill it, potting it up is a good way to start. But if you are really careful and keep it watered just so and in the light and give it sandy soil mixed with compost in a really big pot you can indeed keep it in a pot, for awhile, at least. It will try to send a root out the drainage hole of the pot and find some real dirt.
What's the difference between Bocking 14 and true comfrey (Symphytum officinalis)? The Bocking 14 cultivar of Russian Comfrey (Symphytum x uplandicum) is a sterile hybrid that will not self-seed and is extremely robust and vigorous. The true comfrey (Symphytum officinalis) is a bit less vigorous of a grower, has more elongated leaves and (I think) prettier flowers, and does indeed make seed. We have true comfrey (Symphytum officinalis) available both as potted plants and as seed. To buy potted plants, go back to the horizon herbs homepage and use the search engine or click on "plants" on the purple bar. Plants are available seasonally only. To buy the true comfrey seed follow this link http://www.horizonherbs.com/product.asp?specific=1856
Although both types of comfrey (Russian and True) are useful for making medicine and making compost, in an ideal world one would use the bocking cultivar for producing large amounts of biomass for permaculture gardens, composting, and animal feed, and one would use the true comfrey (Symphytum officinalis) for medicinal purposes. Again, both types (and other species as well) are used interchangeably in agriculture and in medicine.
Comfrey, Russian Crown Cuttings Bocking 14 cultivar of Russian Comfrey (Symphytum x uplandicum) $2.00 each. Use this link to start, and click around for bulk discounts if you want to buy more than 3 starts http://www.horizonherbs.com/product.asp?specific=917
Please choose "plants" shipping at checkout.
Concerning Feeding and Veterinary value of comfrey for goats and other livestock: Fresh comfrey leaf contains about 20% protein and is excellent livestock food. Because it is hairy alot of goats/cows etc won't like it so thats an issue. You can dry it and rub it through a coarse screen and add the herb to feed or you can mash or rub the fresh leaves and then they don't feel hairy and most animals will then relish them. You can also mash and mix with molasses, which is good. Another point is that perfectly healthy goats may turn up their noses to comfrey but sick goats will eat comfrey as if it was one of their other favorite foods--fir bark, green hardwood leaves, some kinds of grasses or clovers, broccoli plants, celery, parsley, lovage, the labels from soup cans, grandpa's cotton underwear... Comfrey treats scours, the usual stomach ailments, broken limbs, but not infections such as mastitis. If your goats however go COSTIVE then you truly have a problem and comfrey isn't going to fix it. What I mean by costive is fully unable to poop and starting to bloat and letting out little plaintive cries--the goat will be dead in 2 days unless you get their bowels moving, call a vet.
I have a whole antimastitis program that involves keeping the udders drained of milk as much as possible and giving hot epsom salt soaks with a terrycloth directly on the udder and then drying udder and rubbing poke oil on the udder, clearing up the nastiest mastitis in a couple of days, fully herbal, again see my book "making plant medicine." If you see blood clots in the milk when you filter it watch out--run a preemptive mastitis program before its too late!
The whole PA thing is absurd and comfrey is perfectly safe for livestock and humans as long as its given as part of a whole diet. You could probably exhibit stress factors if you gave exclusively comfrey, or exclusively anything else for that matter. Do NOT however give the plant to pregnant females. Check my book MAking Plant Medicine under comfrey for a level-headed assessment of all this.
Goat's Rue is used in Europe all the time to boost lactation and it works a treat. It is not harmful. I've checked this with the main european phytotherapists.
As for the farm plan you simply get started growing the plants and you see how often you really use them and how much they produce and then fine-tune your agricultural plan accordingly. Yield of these plants is fully dependent on your environment and how good you are at growing plants. I concentrate on growing a few good plants not many uncared for plants and get plenty for my needs and for the needs of my most exhalted goat buddies of which I have only 2 left right now and they're getting old.
Richo
Freshly dug comfrey root in front of 2ft. Buddha.
Comfrey (Bocking 14 Cultivar, Symphytum x Uplandicum)
