Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Comfrey will do spectacularly well in a wide variety of conditions and is happy
in full sun or almost total shade. Having a high water content, it prefers damp
soil. If you have a light or sandy soil, add plenty of organic matter before the
comfrey goes in.
While the flowers attract bees and other insects by the score - always a good
thing for a garden - it's the root system that makes comfrey special - and just
about impossible to get rid of. Comfrey roots grow up to 3 metres deep to extract
minerals from the subsoil; hence the high mineral content of the leaves.
They are also very brittle, so when you dig up a plant you're bound to leave some
of it behind and it will soon reappear. Given this, consider carefully where you
want your comfrey to grow before you plant it.
Plant the root segments in a block, 60-90cm apart each way. When the plants
flower, cut everything back to 10-15cm tall. Wear stout gloves when handling as
comfrey is covered in tiny hairs that cause skin irritation in most people. Comfrey
dies back in winter but grows again in the spring.
If comfrey is not suitable for your plot,
comfrey pellets
are available, which
contain all the benefits of comfrey leaves - NPK, trace elements, minerals, vitamins
and plant hormones - in a dried pellet form that can be applied as a top dressing
or used to make a mild liquid feed.
Mineral deficiencies
Mineral deficiencies manifest in different ways on different plants, but certain
symptoms are an almost sure sign of a problem. If yellowing patches appear on
leaves (especially between the veins) or scorched areas develop at leaf edges, or
if growing tips grow poorly and then suddenly die for no apparent reason, it's
probably time to introduce a seaweed mineral supplement such as SM3 from
Chase Organics (available from the Organic Gardening Catalogue - see Resources
section). You should see a difference in just a couple of days.
For a longer-term solution, you may wish to consider applying a dressing of rock
dust (marketed in the UK as SEER Rockdust
®
- see Resources section - or easily
available from any nearby quarry) to re-mineralise the soil every few years.
Although the scientific evidence supporting the use of rock dust is far from clear,
anecdotal evidence abounds and there is a lot of user testimony to the value of
rock dust in re-mineralising poor soils.
Overleaf is a list of some mineral deficiency symptoms to watch for in your tunnel
crops.
