Update on Comfrey Tea

A couple of months ago I wrote about my preparations for making comfrey ‘tea’: a highly nutritious plant feed, particularly for fruiting crops such as tomatoes, courgettes and peppers.  Here’s my update:

The final product

After 2 months

Fill with chopped comfrey and cover with water

Choose a container

Recently, I risked a look (and sniff) of the resulting dark liquid: I can confirm the anaerobic process has most definitely created a tea with a memorable pong!  Now I need to find out if the stinkiness is worth putting up with and I will test out the liquid feed on a group of similar plants on the plot.  I will dilute the concentrate (in the pink bowl) into about a watering can of rain water.

I have chosen 2 courgette plants, 2 tomato plants and 2 winter squash plants as my trial crops. This picture shows them at their starting point.  I will feed the crops on the right with the comfrey tea and the other half will be the control group – just relying on what is available to them in the soil.  All the plants are already fruiting successfully, so it will just be a matter of whether I get more/ larger fruit with the magic liquid.  In line with my watering policy I will be applying the feed via wine bottles pushed up to their necks in the soil.  This will deliver the feed to the roots of the plants and avoid evaporation.

I’ll report back on how my trials go later in the year…