Comfrey

We have all seen and heard the ads, "Grow bigger and better fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Just add fertilizer." (I am not listing any specific fertilizer here. Just fill in the name you have heard the most.)

For most of my adult life my garden has been in containers on a patio or in a sunny windowsill. Knowing that container gardens often need extra help, I followed the message in those ads, and began using a commercial fertilizer, which recommended applying every week or two.

Every couple of weeks I would apply fertilizer, and all my plants were growing beautifully. Of course, they were on a warm, sunny balcony, and I checked every day to see if they needed water, but that couldn't have had anything to do with how well they were growing, could it? It had to have been the fertilizer.

One day I was preparing to add fertilizer. I made sure my bird was in his cage, and locked my cat in the bedroom, since the instructions said to keep away from children and animals, and to keep them away from freshly fertilized plants for several hours. Then I pulled on my rubber gloves. (Keep away from skin. If fertilizer comes in contact with skin, rinse immediately, and contact poison control center if necessary.)

As I was re-reading the mixing and applying instructions, and thinking about those preparations I had just made, I thought, WHAT AM I DOING? Did I really want to continue using something that came with so many warnings and precautions?

I decided that I didn't really want to go the chemical fertilizer route, and began reading more about organic gardening. It's amazing how much information is out there about organic gardening in containers. One of my favorites sites is ORGANIC GARDENING

It was there that I first read about comfrey, and its use as a fertilizer. Comfrey has an almost perfect ratio of nitrogen, phosporus, and potassium, the three ingredients looked for in fertilizers. I began watching for comfrey plants, but the large home improvement center gardens didn't have any. It wasn't until I went to a local nursery that I found a comfrey plant. Of course I bought it, and took it home and planted it.

Now, several years later, that original plant has been divided many times. I planted cuttings in several places in my yard, and gave away small comfrey plants as gifts. When given room, comfrey will grow to about 3 feet tall, and spreads out about 3 feet wide. It has stems of purple flowers in the summer, and the large leaves remind me of a prehistoric plant. One of my sisters calls it the dinosaur plant, because of its large bright green leaves.

When I moved to my current apartment, I took a comfrey cutting and transplanted it to a container to take with me. Over the winter, the leaves died out, and it appeared that my plant was gone. I kept watering it, hoping for new green shoots, since I knew that comfrey can survive the mild winters here.

I kept watering the container, even though nothing was showing. I finally decided to plant something else in the container. Today, 3 weeks, after that decision, I went out to plant something. Hmmm, did I take so long because I was still hoping for comfrey, or because I was being lazy? I don't know.

Whatever the case, I went out today to plant something new in the planter. I was thrilled to find a comfrey shoot pushing up through the soil. I guess those lettuce seeds will just have to go into a different container, and the comfrey can grow and thrive, and provide lots of fertilizer for my other plants.