Comfrey is Terrible
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 เม.ย. 2023
- Everyone recommends comfrey! SO WHY DON'T I USE IT EVERYWHERE???
COMPOST EVERYTHING: amzn.to/3zR96qj
Subscribe to the newsletter: thesurvivalgardener.us3.list-...
Compost Your Enemies t-shirts: www.aardvarktees.com/products...
David's gardening blog: www.thesurvivalgardener.com
Comfrey is the top permaculture plant, yet I haven't found it to be useful in Florida gardening. Sometimes you need to plant something different! Using comfrey for fertilizer and for chop and drop is all well and good... if it grows great! But if something doesn't grow great, don't force it! Learn to garden with your climate and you'll have a much better time. - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
If there is one thing I have learned from watching years of David, it's that nothing is a fix-all. Adapt to your environment. Don't let people stop you from trying new things. A plant unknown to "professionals" may be the miracle plant to save your garden. A "miracle plant" suggested by thousands of "professionals" may do horrible and may even be a detriment to your garden.
David, I get a lot of information from your videos, but your approach to gardening is the biggest breath of fresh air in this culture of absolute do's and dont's.
That being said, I just planted my first Comfrey plant two days ago and almost feel chastised. We'll see how it goes.
God bless.
Don’t feel chastised I think the point is don’t lock into one thing. I am in South Carolina and my comfrey is a nice addition
Comfrey is called "health all" and if you get it to thrive, bonus! It's not the "one and only" answer, there isn't one.
"heal all". 🙄 Auto fill strikes again.
I love having Comfrey in my garden. When there's to much I'm able to give it away. It's very beneficial for pollinators.
Thank you very much. Look - comfrey is great, when it likes you and your yard - roll with it!
Well I grew comfrey in my zone 1b Antarctican backyard and it not only thrived but it did my taxes and saved my marriage, so clearly David is full of malarkey.
How do you compost malarkey?
@@coffee.dad4419 Let's put it this way: if you omit Epsom Salt, enjoy your new outdoor toilet.
I needed that laugh! 😂
...and your pet penguins eat it!
😂😂😂😂😂
I live in Arizona and use Mexican Sunflower as a perennial chop and drop and it kicks Comfrey’s butt here. It’s incredibly nutrient dense and can be used as fodder, fertilizer etc just like comfrey.
It is awesome. I should have mentioned it as well. Tithonia diversifolia.
I got some this year just for that purpose...heard of it here on this channel
@@joannmcculley8253 If I made a list of the plants I've tried (and sometimes failed with) because of this channel, ... It's fun to garden the DTG way! I no longer worry about whether or not something will do well. Either it likes the spot and grows or it feeds the soil. Either way, I win!
We use both Sunflowers and comfrey here in AZ also!
I use burdock. HUGE. Gotta shred it with my lawn mower first tho. I used it in place of cardboard once to keep out weeds.
Comfrey, comfrey, comfrey, must have comfrey. It turns vegetables into gold, can run the mile in 2 minutes and writes poetry better than Shakespeare. Now that is out of my system, thanks for another great video.
Love it!!
I started growing comfrey a couple years ago for improving my compost. But I started with only 2 plants and then I added 2 more last year because it is working and growing well. I also discovered the benefits of it as a medicinal herb. Now I don't want to be without it. But I tested it first before I went crazy with it. Now I have 4 nice size plants that I can split this year and increase my harvest.
Im in Germany too and I found marshmallow plants produce. About 4 times as much chop and drop it's echter eibish auf deutsch. Its worth a try
Yes, bone-knit. It does all the things. I gotta get more plants this year. Hard to find for some reason and I'm too lazy to start seeds😂
I have 4 nice comfrey plants that I put in in the fall. So I'm just seeing how beautiful it is. It has little pink and purple blossoms that the carpenter bees are loving so far. It actually looks very similar to borage but bell shaped flowers. I love borage too.
@@spiritranger9202 Borage is also great for pollinators!
Grew moringa last year. Seeds turned into 6’ trees in one season. Really cool plant.
Wow 6 feet
I have one in my North-side garden beds and it gets to about 20 feet tall before the frosts kill it to the ground each year.
Go for the "chop and drop" with the Maringa, it can be chipped especially the new growth (has the most nutrients) then used as mulch.
I have a potted plant I overwintered. Need to get it planted in the soil!!
Thank you David for removing the rules. I have learned that you don’t need much to grow something and you can always be better at it. It really frees me up.
David, what I've learned from watching your videos is to try different things and then continue doing what works best for me. So many TH-camrs present their methods of doing things as if their method is the only way to do it, and you are stupid if you don't do it their way. You have a way of teaching things that is positive, and encouraging.
I am older, and don't have the physical ability to build a compost pile, turn it, and then transport it to where I need it. Instead, I save my kitchen scraps, and bury them in holes all around my garden. I do this year-round. When my garden is in full growth, I dig small holes between the plants to bury the scraps. I live in zone 6b, so most winters are not too cold to dig holes. I don't know if this is the best way to get organic materials into my soil, but it is the best way for me. My soil is filled with worms, without the work of a separate worm bin. In the fall, I cover my garden with leaves that I collect with my riding mower, so there is no raking, and the leaves are chopped and mixed with grass clippings.
This summer I'm going to try making "swamp water" with the weeds I pull. I got the idea from one of your videos. I'm looking forward to seeing how it works!
Thank you, and God bless you and your family.
Thank you - God bless you too.
I have all kinds of fetid swamp water all summer long, it’s great stuff and you can tailor it for different plants needs. I found a full 5 gallon bucket overwintered with grass clippings, so excited. Dandelion greens are great, their deep roots bring up all kinds of minerals.
I've heard your prayers and have blessed David
My dad was French. He dug trenches in which he placed kitchen scraps and garden cuttings that would rot. He had the best garden. I learnt later that this is called the French Trenching way of composting.
Why does no one love yarrow? You can even... plant it with your comfrey!
Yarrow's great and a mainstay here. Needs more love.
I love yarrow. It grows in the garden!
😂 thx for the giggle!
I just read on yarrow learning thanks for the tip
I love yarrow!
I've grown comfrey from Michigan to Louisiana to Colorado. This is a useful plant to have! Try things for yourself before discarding it all together. 💚
Yes, I agree.
I've wasted over $60 trying to grow comfrey in different places at my home. The roots never sprouted. I'm going to try ONE MORE TIME with plants that are in pots and already above ground. This time, I'm going to plant them near my spring close to where I'm putting in an orchard. The plants get here today so cross your fingers and toes that they grow and the horses don't eat them.
I'm in southwest Arkansas and have sandy clayish soil with iron ore rock everywhere though these used to be planted fields back in the day growing watermelons and other money crops.
I tried to grow it in Central Texas and it died as soon as the weather turned hot.
@@hltyler5782 It got 120° here one year. It didn't like it, but it survived.
Okay, I got my plants in and I watered them but they went dry overnight and were wilted to the ground this morning. I went ahead and planted them in 10 gal. buckets and watered well. Will they come back? I HOPE SO!
In Maine it’s great for use as a chicken feed. The chickens will keep it at bay by eating it to the ground.
People love "Cliff notes", especially when they feel like they're cramming for the exam. TH-cam makes experts available to offer their version of Cliff notes on the fly for any subject. Thank you for pointing out what should be obvious to us all, but isn't. I am guilty of following instructions for fermenting and was blown away at how much FASTER it was ready in my hot climate. They said leave on the counter at room temp for way more days than I needed because they lived in a colder climate. My advice - treat your garden like a giant Petri dish and plant everything you want to grow but examine your results, as if it is one big experiment. Some things may thrive and some may fry. Just keep on experimenting until you get a few successes under your belt.
Very good advice... plant and observe... take notes as well!! I moved from zone 6 to zone 8.... it was a total reboot regarding gardening!!
If you call everything an experiment it's less dissapointing when it flops I find.
@@jodihardie5526 In gardening, there's never a failure. It's always a learning opportunity and everything either grows or feeds the soil, sometimes both!
One big experiment is right. I've been having problems growing peppers so I'm experimenting with a different method this year. That's really all you can do.
David, yes, yes, very riveting stuff and I really hate to interrupt you here, but you should really give this plant called comfrey a go, I hear it's amazing stuff.
You know what REALLY works great?
Comfrey.
I have followed the masses and grew all those tropical survival plants in Florida: moringa, katuk, Malabar spinach, chaya....they grew great, and tasted terrible, to me. But now, this chop and drop idea....that moringa looks more and more beautiful by the minute. Plus the pigeon pea....fertilizer, AND tasty harvest. Thank you for all the practical tips.
What is pigeon pea fertilizer about please?
@@pegsol3834 As a fast-growing, tender perennial in Central Florida and southward, pigeon pea provides loads of protein-rich bio-mass as fertilizer for the spring, summer and fall garden, then flowers and produces a legume crop in the winter. Also fixes nitrogen, conditions soil, yaddah, yaddah. DTG has several pigeon pea videos, tho probably emphasizing its permaculture use as a pioneer crop, not so much for chop and drop specifically.
@@oreopaksun2512 Thank you for your response. I live in South coastal Texas, sounds like it would do well here. Where do I buy it?
@@pegsol3834 Indian markets almost always have dried pigeon peas. Bagged ones will grow.
@@pegsol3834 My reply seems to be getting dropped....I got mine from Hispanic grocery called "gandules" by Puerto Ricans. I also found it at that Big Box Store in ethnic grocery section for $1/lb-ish. In Indian stores it may be called Toor or Tuwar Dal, but only get the whole dal, not the skinned and split ones.
Here in San Antonio I use Moringa as a chop and drop. I have a grocery row gardening setup and plant 4 moringa trees in between my fruit trees that are spaced ~12 feet apart. In the summer it provides a really nice filtered shade from the blazing furnace/sun for the plants growing underneath. I nibble on it in my evening walk through the garden, but mostly I try to chop and drop and keep it to be about 4-5 feet and as bushy as possible. I also use it for my own "David's Swampwater" setup.
Oh my goodness thank you so much for this idea!! I don't want to set up a shade cloth... Moringa would be a great alternative!!
MO works great for me in FL (zone 10) too! Plus after removing as much sugar from my diet as I could manage to maintain and adding fresh, daily MO leaves I have no psoriatic arthritis symptoms. 😊❤️
Awesome. I’m experimenting with MORINGA now.
Thank you for your honesty. I spent years feeling like a failure at gardening. Now thanks to your advice, I experienced great success with yard-long beans and am adding Everglades tomatoes this year.
This video is so perfect for what I'm planning right now. It's definitely a meant to be wisdom drop for me. Thank you so much, David the Good! I really love listening to your joy of gardening. You are such a comfort and inspiration to me. God bless you and your family.
It even varies from yard to yard within Florida. At my old property, marigolds got massive and spread everywhere and I chopped and dropped those for biomass. Here my Mexican sunflowers are skyscrapers and my moringa is growing strangely slow.
Omg I have the exact same thing!
Same with me
Our comfrey has done really well in Florida (on builder grade sand) now I’m giving it a stare down…you suck comfrey !😝 David, keep up the good!
Moringa is slow but then bolts. Mine went from late planting and tiny to rapidly towering seven feet or more above my back fence.
Never had much luck with marigolds. One year though, my mom dumped some seeds right outside her classroom door, and they grew the biggest marigold plants I've ever seen-- lush, with flowers that looked like huge bright orange chrysanthemums at a distance. Her secret? It was the same spot where she dumped the buckets whenever she changed out the water in her fish tanks. Location, location...
I'm sure comfrey is great .. but I have so many other great plants already! I have several plants that are good at accumulating calcium (comfrey's main claim) such as common nettle, and Gallium Aparine. For potassium, Lamb's quarters was always a better choice, and I have it in abundance. Comfrey can accumulate nitrogen and make it available during decomposition .. but it is not a nitrogen fixing plant .. but I have Medicago Sativa growing, and alfalfa has the extra advantage of supplying growth hormone. I suppose it might be good for replenishing silicon in our soil, but I do not think there is any need.
Thanks, David. In general, the gulf south is not the best place to grow a lot of things! I’m in the so-called “Florida Parishes” in Louisiana (which is piney woods yet still a lot of sand in the natural dirt) on 3 acres of old horse pasture. That’s close to Eden ! Add sphagnum peat & black kow type amendment and its perfect! South of Lake Pontchartrain, it’s black muck but grows cypress, oaks & blackberries. Just add river sand. Eden. How I wish I had started gardening food crops when I was younger and more physically able! Like buying a house, it’s always Location, Location, Location!
You’re always so realistic & so helpful. Hugs to all!
Location … yep got clay dirt here growing in buckets
Thanks David your books and video gave me the inspiration to "start stuff" here in Melbourne, Fl. I don't have the room to do everything I want but the little I do keeps me really busy and I am learning.
Appropriate wisdom no matter where we are in life. We may not achive everything but we can always achieve something. High five
What works great for me is using tall grass to mulch around my plants or on bare soil.
David you've quickly become my favorite gardener and grower on TH-cam! Talking some straight sense and it's great! Keep them coming!
I have a comfrey plant. It looks beautiful until the Texas heat hits. It struggles every summer, dies back in winter, then looks beautiful in spring. It's also under shade cloth, 90% last summer. 40% summer before that. Same thing.
Ahhh, good to know... my comfrey struggled and died late last summer... and now recently has sprung back to life. I appreciate your insight!!
Yours grew back in cooler weather? Over the years here in Florida, mine never did.
It's not the Comfrey David, it's you. 😉😂
Here in North Florida I have never been able to grow comfrey. It's too hot hear. I have started growing red crimson clover around my fruit trees. It works great. Red crimson clover is a great cover crop for your soil.
I've been thinking of growing white Dutch clover as a (basically) no mow yard cover for what's effectively right now a dust bowl ant farm ☹️, in central Florida east coast. I like the look of the crimson flowers though. How tall does it grow, and where did you get your seeds?
@@Joe_C. The crimson clover gets only about 18 inches at the highest. It actually lays down and doesn't look that high. I got my seeds from Outsidepride.com
@@Carolynfoodforest355, thank you! 😃
I got clover seeds of all types from the local feed and seed. It's a common pasture addition. Cheap there, too.
@@davidthegood, thanks! There's a couple somewhat nearby I'll have to check out
We live in central Florida, I have comfrey growing in a big pot on my back porch. I use it for my chickens but we have moranga growing everywhere and it’s fabulous. Thanks David you inspire us all.
Most deep root plants grow here in California. Dandelion, sow thistle, yarrow, mallow if you let it grow and just trim it. So definitely agreed with david here. Use the best plants that thrive in your environment not go for the ones everyone's talking about
Right on, Juan.
@David The Good Hey,David! how often are you recommend to watering the garden with diluted pee ? Thanks for your work ❤
@@tommyluck19 Every couple of weeks should be fine, or, with more dilution, you can water all the time.
@@davidthegood Thanks!!!
I get asked semi often if we have comfrey available. I tell people that despite what Pinterest told you, comfrey doesn’t actually work well in south Florida. Tithonia is much better. Now I’ll just refer people to this video when they ask for comfrey 😆
Oh wow I didn't know tithonia fixed nitrogen Its growing like a huge weed
@@introtwerp neither of them fix nitrogen
@@IncredibleEdibleLandscapes oh really I thought I heard otherwise
It is a great nutrient accumulator, though not an n fixer.
Comfrey is growing great for me here in SW Florida; I have it growing around base of various fruit trees; I chop/drop it a couple times a year. Moringa struggles during wetter, soggy months, then bounces back over dry season months. I’m using some vetiver and lemon grass as ground cover and chop/drop.
Now I know why my comfrey is not growing. I live in zone 9A Florida.
But, the moringa grows great!
You are so freaking funny 😂 I'm growing moringa in Virginia....I drink it in my coffee everyday and it's helped me with pain ...I also grow mullien.. well basically I grow medicine.... and some food.... happy gardening 🥰
Thank you. Good to hear this. I just planted it.
4 things I have learned while messing around in my Florida garden: 1. Comfrey is really challenging to get established especially in the warmer parts of the year (it heats up fast here), but if it makes it to the cool part of the year, it can thrive once it generates enough cover. 2. Moringa grows really fast when it is warm, slogs along when it is cool, and dies as soon as it freezes (right to the ground), but will literally resurrect itself like some kind of green monster in the spring. 3. Pigeon Peas are a fantastic source for compost, mulch, and biochar material. If you trim them back in the fall and stick a greenhouse over them, you might just get some seed too (trying this with Moringa this year). 4. David the Good is pretty much the Montessori of gardening. Experiment, observe, assess, implement, repeat. Instead of follow the child... follow the green!
Careful Mr The Good: people get upset when you tear down their sacred cows lol
Love an instructional rant laced with humor! Did not disappoint. 🎉
So glad to find your channel, growing up in Northern Indiana we always grew massive vegetable gardens. Now I'm a North Floridian and had to throw out everything I knew and start learning everything all over. Grateful for you knowledge on growing, as we have a 2 acre growing field full of sand, some weird grass type thing with deep roots. Trying permaculture this year, with layering, no till and 4 LG compost piles going. Hope this will work.
Yeah likewise, moringa won't over winter here. Your're so correct...figure out your own environment...it's not a cookie cutter.
Many people try to drink whiskey from a bottle of wine and then complain that the bottle doesn't work.
Thanks, Bro. David! That was a very encouraging video. 😊 Sometimes we forget we don't have to do it all, because it isn't "all" for us. We're trying Mexican sunflower down here in Polk county, FL, for our chop & drop.
Poison ivy, canadian thistle and dandelions are my main crops. Good thing sheep can process them into protein.
🤣 What a concept! Plant for your region 👍🏻 but of course! Just had a lovely new neighbor ask me for my suggestion for best apple tree in this 7b area. Easy…..figs. His family grew apples in some northerne state, so he hoped he could plant. Nope. Not enough chilling hours. Add in the mntc and the chemicals needed. 🤷🏻♀ Figs, blue/black/ras-berries and those icky wild muscadines grow easily and are delish❤. Good advice, David!
Excellent advice, and not just for gardeningl. My first moringa seed just germinated and I'm waiting for the other two to pop through the soil. Thanks, DtG, for showing how those with common sense garden. ~ Lisa
Great points! Moringa grows well in SC zone 8a , but you have to bring it indoors for winter. I was unaware of the benefits for the soil! My comfrey is finally growing from roots I bought last year. Excited spring is here!
It grows great in Michigan, clay loam soil, full sun. I never assume something will or won’t grow until I try it.
"don't be depressed about it (not having that perfect garden ideal) because you've got other things going on in your life right now." Thank you, yes, so true. And comfrey doesn't work for me either. I sometimes drink it as a tea, but I'm not going to force myself to like growing it when it doesn't work for my situation as well as some other plants. There are a lot of great plants--they are all some kind of medicine for someone.
According to tests run by Nigel Palmer, stinging nettle has the widest variety of minerals when used for fermented plant juice of any plant tested, including comfrey. I love my comfrey, but hey: Go, stinging nettle!
Mexican sunflower is whats up 😆
We love Moringa & take it as a vitamin, but we live zone 7A & it won't overwinter here, on the other hand comfrey thrives. We love finding new things to use & it just so happens comfrey grows well here. Also our chickens absolutely love it!!
I AGREE WITH YOU DAVID, I LIVE IN CENTRAL FLORIDA AND I AM HAVING TO DO MY GARDEN TOTALLY DIFFERENT THAT WHAT EVERYONE SAYS YOU CAN GROW AND PLANTING IT INSTEAD DURING FALL AND WINTER TO GET A GOOD CROP OF TOMATOES AND I AM STILL LEARNING TO GROW IN CONTAINERS AND RAISED BEDS. I HAVE A FEW OF YOUR BOOKS AND PLAN ON GETTING MORE. THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP.
I was specifically looking for things that do well in Northwest Florida when I found your channel. Thanks for all the great advice!
Great check for us all. For me sometimes it is missing the window to have a successful plant. I also have good luck with moringa but use it as a tree and not chop and drop. It’s a great idea! On it! Thanks again.
Love your practical, down-to-earth approach to gardening. And you know the quirkiness of growing in Central Florida. Bonus!
You are a true philosopher!
"Do the thing that you can get, it's not good if you are just going to talk about it ".
True wisdom. Thank you for the reminder to just get out there and do what you can according to your climate and circumstances. And be happy about it.
Too much going on in my life right now to do any serious gardening, trying to accept this season.
The Comfrey I planted last year doing great in VA. Hoping to divide and use as rhizome barrier to keep crabgrass from taking over everything!
I'm in South Alabama south of I-10 and I haven't tried to grow comfrey because of what I've heard about how it does here. I do have a lot of Pokeweed that pops up with a lot of bio-mass and it breaks up the soil. I let the birds get the berries, because that keeps them less interested in those berries I can eat. Poke berries are toxic to humans so don't eat them. So David, is Pokeweed the Comfrey of South Alabama? Anybody else?
Pokeweed does very well up here in East TN, too. Locals these days generally consider it nothing but a nuisance. I use it pretty much like you do.
I use poke as a chop and chop.
Poke in place of spinach in a a creamy artichoke dip is tough to beat! (Use young leaves on plants less than 18 in tall and rinse 3-4 times during steaming to render edible)
Yes.. I have experienced exactly what you are describing here in Delaware, basically from late June forward. It gets way too hot and often too dry for comfrey to do anything except shrivel up and beg for mercy. Comfrey does well here in early spring and the middle of fall, but that's about it. It comes back every year, so there's that..
I have planted moringa, also, and do like it better. It's definitely happier in our scorching summers. The only drawback is that it dies back completely in our winters and has to be replanted each year.
I've really come to enjoy having stinging nettles here. They are perennial and effortless, in addition to being super nutritious for people and plants. The stings are a minor tradeoff in my experience.
Nettles are probably your best bet. Good find. I haven't gotten any here.
Finally, the truth. Planted comfry here in Texas around several fruit trees that were getting regular water. It all died before summer was half way through. Our summer is 5 months, but that’s besides the point. We have a lot of dock here that works similarly.
My geese love to eat dock! Grow the stuff that grows and leave the stuff that doesn't.
I've had comfrey sitting in water in a 5 gallon bucket for 6 months and I'm terrified to lift the lid.
I've heard that comfrey is excellent for gardens, but this video and your comment have given me pause, made me wonder. At the moment it's not much of an issue for me because while the garden is still developing, we don't have all *that* much space to give to something we don't or won't eat. We'd be growing for biomass and comfrey, had we the room for it, would be going into the compost bin because we heard (or read?) it's so terrific for plants.
If you don't mind my asking, has your comfrey sitting in water been sitting because you're terrified to lift the lid, or is it supposed to sit for at least a specified, minimum amount of time which has been exceeded and the potential, ah, "whiffiness" of the 5-gallon bucket what's got you stalled when it comes to lifting the lid?
I'm convinced the only things that grow well here, in my sandy hot area of central Florida, is the stuff I pay zero attention to, never water, and usually can't tolerate the taste of. 😐
That said, your daughter's everglades tomato seeds came in the mail and I am excited and confident they'll do great!
I’m in sw Fl planting zone 9b. Get a tomato called “MONEY MAKER”. (you’ll have to order seeds). It’s a heirloom. Which you can order from Everwilde seeds. This tomato plant gets HUGE. It is LOADED with tomatos. They are medium size. But they out produce any tomato I’ve planted! I have beefstakes planted and am lucky to get 4. I have harvested at least 35 off the money maker and it’s still got loads of tomatos ripening right now.
Another I experimented with and are LOADED is “Yellow pear”. Pear shaped like a roma tomato. Indeterminate as well. They have gotten huge and are loaded. I’m not going to bother with anything else from now on. They are so prolific. 🤗 It was so loaded one if the vines broke, and it still is loaded.
Also. I seed them. Then plant them out in Around end of Feb.
this video was made for me lol. started gardening with permaculture and have been ordering moringa, comfrey and sunn hemp triying to find that thing that helps me more lol
Very well said I hated being told to grow something I knew wouldn't grow in my area . Oh tomatoes grow like weeds in my area 😅
I agree 100%. Use what works in your area and most importantly, OBSERVE! Here in West-Central GA I can grow some comfrey, and it does relatively well. However, the heartwing sorrel (Rumex hastatulus) grows wild, fast and everywhere! Very deep roots (similar to dandelion). Good nutrient accumulator and it is very high in protein. My chickens love it too!
I bought 30 crown cuttings this year. Zone 6a. Can't wait to do chop and drop, feed to my chickens and goats etc etc. To each their own right. 😊
It worked great when I live in TN zone 6/7
Zone 7 with clay soil... Can't kill the stuff 😅. Be careful where you put it because it's there forever. Can't dig it all out, solarize it or smother it. Bees love it though.
So true I moved mine to a new bed. The old grew back. Dug it up for my niece, my friend. Then for a new friend.. For a random. Stranger, for some one who got rabbits from me. Still have 4 or 5 more plants to give to others.
Loved this! Not only do i want to find the stuff that grows normally well in my area, but i want to hedge my bets on what kind of growing seasons (I live in SW Florida zone 9b) we are going to have and what will survive and thrive in freezing, hot, dry, and super wet weather with high wind through those growing seasons! At least I want to have strategies to mitigate the worst of it so I can produce food!
Another great video! I just got some comfrey and it is growing great! I'm in zone 10A. Haven't had enough time to test it for all of the uses. When I chop and drop my Mexican Sunflower; it starts growing and becomes invasive. Any suggestions?
I'm in central TN. I like comfrey, canna, and banana so far. Anything with a large surface area that breaks down well. Always looking for more better chop and drops!
Yep. Comfrey works great for me in East TN but moringa likely wouldn't.
I also have a silly amount of red dock, which I probably wouldn't plant on purpose but it's already there, so for fertilizer tea and mulch I use it the same way as comfrey.
@@dogslobbergardens-hv2wf That's a good idea. My goats eat around the dock for some reason so there are always mature clumps of it in the field. I think I'll try gathering some for mulch this year🙂
@@simmonds6063 go for it. It will spring back very much like comfrey does.
@@simmonds6063 dock contains somewhat high levels of oxalic acid and oxylates, which in large amounts can be toxic to many critters.
Letting the dock break down in compost, a tea, etc, is the best way I could find to make use of it.
AWE...thank you! you just magically opened my nougat. I do have a trough. I haven't started yet, been struggling with self just trying to figure out where to plant my blackberries....ding, ding, ding...i'm going to plant them in big horse buckets with handles and move them around. I confess I do have Comfrey in the frig ready for the first try, I'm getting Moringa seeds, need fast growth, and benefits. It's all a moveable feast and excited to see what will work, and with your blessing I can do what I can. 7b/8 and arid in northern Arizona.
I would rather be able to grow Moringa than Comfrey!
I had this same experience with torpedo radishes - they grow huge for me, but only above ground!
Notice that rhubarb, horseradish and gobo( burdock) all have growth patterns similar to comfrey...
Meh. Comfrey is my biggest seller. I'm going crazy with comfrey planting this year. I hope to be one of if not the biggest grower in the entire country within a few years. I'll agree its not right for every situation but for an Alaskan Northern Climate where I live or for a high elevation climate in the lower 48 where my customers live its the shiggity diggity. Can't kill it. Crowds out weeds. Enriches and loosens the soil. Use it for fertilizer and as a top mulch. Its an all around plant for me. I grow the old school fertile Officinale stuff which frightens some people as its got fertile seed. I'm sold out right now. Can't wait for the snow to melt so I can start selling roots again and making more money. I even use it to fertilize my Jerusalem artichokes. Comfrey, comfrey, comfrey,comfrey,comfrey! Did I mention comfrey? I love comfrey. I'll probably sleep on a pile of comfrey at some point this summer. I will agree though you have to be careful reading about it online. The amount of hype they put behind it is quite out of bounds. I've seen a lot of websites that their numbers don't even match up on their own formulations. But for me the plant needs no hype.
My GSD does indeed sleep on a bed of comfrey. He just plops right down on the biggest plant he can find and snuggles right in for his afternoon nap.
Great video! We're big fans of comfrey medicinally and as fertilizer in the gardens, and grateful it grows so well here in Virginia. Thanks for encouraging folks to look around and make friends with local plants.
A simple way to figure out what nutrient accumulating plants you should use is to observe your local ecosystems and see what plants are doing that job around you. What native plant grows fast after a disturbance in the ecosystem and produces an abundance of nutrient-rich biomass? For me it's plants like poppies, phacelia, bush sunflower, lupine, lotus, and elderberry. Basically any early succession native plant is what people like to call a dynamic accumulator. That's the secret that they don't tell you in permaculture. You can also have a look at what effectively does that in people's gardens. For me tropicals such as moringa, tithonia, pigeon pea, and popcorn cassia are extremely good at that if I'm willing to invest a little bit of water during the dry season.
Hi David,
I have been inspired by your videos and have finally started my own TH-cam channel earlier this year. I believe that growing in accordance with your local climate and utilizing local resources is key to success. To this end, I have been using free mulch from a local arborist that was delivered to my home, and I have sourced local compost for only $9 per yard. Nature knows best. Gardening with Dave!🌾
I grow comfrey in a shady area near my compost pile area because it does capture nutrients.
Comfrey can spread easily in my area, hence putting it in shade to curb its rank growth.
Great points your making, I experiment a lot on my place , but try not to invest too many resources to make it happen. Love you label it as a tool!
I have a lot of comfrey growing in my banana bed. So far it has spread crazily in my raised bed but once summer hits full force it might be another thing. I want to use it in my swamp water and chop and drop for my bananas. I had a plant years ago right by the water spigot in mostly shade. It grew there for years. I am zone 9b southern Texas.
My comfrey by the house in a wetter location did well in North Florida, too. But out where I wanted to use it for chop and drop, it died out.
Did it help your Bananas? What keeps your Bananas going?
Good video. I am in the desert in Arizona so I have my own challenges. I am growing some moringa from seed. The first 2 are up. They will freeze back in the winter but all I can do is keep trying and experimenting and see what works. Deep mulch is helping to control the stink net weeds and helps with moisture retention.
My Mom planted comfrey against the house on a partial shade side. That was 18 years ago. It still comes back every spring and it gets big. I love it for medicinal uses but it’s got a mind of its own, lol.
Stinging nettle is where it's at.
I know exactly what you mean with comfrey. It's a struggle to grow where I am. However, I can't seem to get moringa to do well, either. I've got two trees and they struggle all the time. Good to know about dandelion, though. It grows wild around here like crazy.
Hi David,
Excellent advice...one size doesn't fit all!
I live in Windermere, Florida zone 9b.
Currently, I'm growing Moringa in my backyard..they love it❤
Thanks for the info ❤
❤Peggy❤
I've only use comfrey as a medicinal herb and only very carefully. You must make sure the wound is extremely clean or it can cause abscesses. I do love it for a medicinal herb but otherwise never tried it
Canna Lilly's the comfrey replacement for Florida! Great chop and drop, and great added into my anaerobic compost tea garbage can! And, I don't use a bubbler, I just stir occasionally after adding more yard waste, potash, charcoal, Epsom salt, old milk, crushed egg shells and water! I about a month or 2 later will sift out the charcoal after it sinks to the bottom and will gently bury or incorporate it around the root systems of my potted plants or in the garden! I notice a big jump in growth and blooms in plants after doing this, as well as David's method of taking the tea out and diluting it to a 10 parts water/1 part tea ratio and water the gardens with it!
I feel this way about the biodynamic herbs. Steiner lived in Germany, not Hawaii. Personally, I’ve found papaya to somehow stimulate the soil around the trees that were failing. Within days they turned around and now are thriving.
In North Texas I can grow comfrey. But it needs constant water in summer and partial shade is beneficial. Put it in a sunny spot in July with 110 degrees everyday and it's toast. At the base of oaks and pines is where it appears happiest.
I live in East Africa, On the Nile, On the Equator, and I swear I can not grow Moringa. I have tried everything, and it just will not grow for me. For me, comfrey generates a lot of organic material very quickly. I use it to feed the rabbits, in the compost pile, as mulch, as food for black soldier flies. I can not independently verify what people claim about it having 10 foot tap root or whether or not it is a nutrient accumulator or not, but it does generate organic matter quickly. Love your channel and I am learning a lot. Thanks!
Thank you.
Thank you David. I always learn something new from you. I'm in north central GA, and here, this plant grows, with long thick root and big wide leaves. I used to treat it like a weed, but now, it's my go to chop and drop. You can't kill this stuff, whatever it is, so why not make use of it.
You are so right David. Work with nature not against it is one of the principles of permaculture so trying to create a tropical food forest in a temperate zone or vice versa is a recipe for getting completely hacked off with your garden. I lived in the Mediterranean for a few years but am now back in my native UK.
In the Med, tomatoes grow outdoors. They take off all by themselves and as long as you keep them watered, they keep you fed. In the UK they are a high maintenance crop requiring greenhouses, regular feeds and the prime location in your plot.
On the land I rent, the ground around the ancient plum trees is riddled with nettles. Slowly I'm recovering sections of it for growing vegetables but I've learned to respect and use the nettles. Their roots are a great soil conditioner, breaking up the compacted clay - and when I pull them up just before they go to seed, they go into my own version of your fetid swamp water - I have barrels full of water with nettles soaked in which becomes my plant feed for my seedlings and young plants.
But I have just started with a couple of containers of comfrey after a neighbour gave me cuttings. Apparently my chickens will love it!!
Lemongrass, mexican sunflower, banana, all good chop and drop in Florida. Pigeon Pea is good to have around too. And around me we have an abundance of oak leaves, I have a giant and I mean giant pile of them just from picking up bags in my neighborhood.
Now, in the spring, I pull off all comfrey flowers and give to hens. (there isn't much debris they don't get.) This keeps down the new starts. I may leave some seeds to form but only if I know someone who wants them.
Swales are another one of those things that some people sell as a cure-all. Try doing swales in a wet climate or in clay soil and you'll kill everything and flood your fields. If you're dry, you might need swales. If you're wet, you might actually want to work on drainage rather than retention.
My mother had a huge problem with flooding in the backyard, we realized it was the elderberry tree that was clogging up the soil and preventing the drainage down the hill. We were sad to remove the tree, but it had been productive for years and now the yard drains perfectly. Sometimes the right plant is in the wrong spot.
Yes! People always used to ask me if and when I was going to put swales in my North Florida food forest. It was a flat yard with no flooding issues, so they didn't make sense. But Geoff Lawton puts in swales!!! You need them!!!
Totally agree. I bought 10 roots. 5 came up in 2 years. They are finally big enough to use.
Thank you, I'm in south Florida and struggling with growing comfrey. I was wondering what I was doing wrong.
But i can grow tomatoes all year long.
Comfrey. I remember in the 80s and 90s, Comfrey was all the rage. Then a few people got sick by misusing it in foods.
Leucaena was introduced in Australia as a fodder plant, then people found out that is a great nitrogen fixer...
We now have a weed tree that spreads just about everywhere. There is a 3-acre patch on the old cattle property I currently rent some space on. About all it's good for is to clear a patch in the middle to grow some 'herbal medicine'.
I live in Australia and I know of Bill. A friend of mine completed Bill's permaculture course in the early 2000s. I read up heaps on his methods and incorporate a lot of the principles in my gardening.
As David said, it's DEPENDS! For me, as of now it's literally best for me to get the plants out sooner than later. Even my 30w 3300K 2 feet LEDs I gotten weren't comparable to a ~4 hours indirect sunlight window. And the plants are growing out in just literal days even though we are STILL over 2 weeks til last frost date.
I was just at the New Port Richey Library and found your book I loved it so much I went looking for you and found your TH-cam Channel! Thank you for doing this I'm gonna be growing my own food cause of you now!
Thank you! I'm glad they carried it.
I've started thinking about it for the poultice use. I don't know about all the rest of that, but I can buy some already dried up for much less effort and time of trying to grow some. And I'm supporting a home business.
How do u use it ? Do u drink it or put it on the affected area? I been looking for it into the woods cant find it
I love what you said, "Grow with the Climate" Makes sense and appreciate the candid conversation. Thank you,
Can I ask you about the moringa? I live in Birmingham, zone 7b-8a. I have my moringa in large pots, full sun. One of the plants is growing great, the other keeps having branches that the leaves will wither. I don't understand what makes 1 happy and the other not so much??
You make a lot of sense about growing comfrey. I got the answer to my question about growing comfrey in Florida. Thank you.
Well David you have to use Back2Eden style to grow Comfrey in poor sandy soil.
Moringa, I knew it was coming. One problem with Confrey not much eats it
Thanks David - Q4U: any tips for when we want to use moringa as chopndrop to prevent it from sprouting into new plants?
It always died on me when chopped and dropped on top of Florida sand. In the rainforest of the West Indies, it would re-root from branches laying on the ground.
Confrey isn't working for me here in Louisiana. I purchased some because I heard it was invasive, but on my property it's very slow growing. It's so slow growing I'm thinking I should till up some ground with compost to see if I can get it growing any faster in loose soil.