Ask any serious gardener in the UK about the virtues of Comfrey ‘Bocking 14’ and you are likely to be there for a while. The virtues of comfrey are many, including its fabled abilities to heal broken bones and bruises, its health-giving qualities when taken internally as a tonic (somewhat controversially since it was placed on the Australian Poisons Schedule in 1984!), but mostly for its use in building high-quality organic soil.
Symphytum x uplandicum ‘Bocking 14’ is a strain of comfrey that became well known to English gardeners in the late 1950’s after Lawrence Hills (probably Britain’s best-known organic gardener) established the Henry Doubleday Research Association (HDRA) at his property in the village of Bocking. Comfrey was at the foundation of the fledgling association as Lawrence set about collecting as many strains of it from around the UK as he could in order to continue the work of Henry Doubleday from the 1870’s. Henry was a Quaker who had a plan to harvest the mucilaginous extract from comfrey for use in envelope glue. The glue idea failed, but Henry saw great qualities in the ‘Russian Comfrey’ he grew as a high-yielding food crop that could feed a hungry world. He spent the last thirty years of his life growing and studying this remarkable plant.So, after an interruption of 40 years, Lawrence Hills took up the work of Henry Doubleday. He trialed over 20 strains of comfrey that he rounded up from hedge-rows and abandoned fields throughout the country. One of these strains stood out from the pack as a rust-resistant heavy yielder with high potash and allantoin (a protein-like substance found in comfrey roots and leaves). This strain was number 14 (‘Bocking 14’), it could yield 40 tons an acre and has become the best British garden variety.
Digger’s is very happy to offer Comfrey ‘Bocking 14’, sourced direct from our contact at the HDRA (the organisation that made it famous) to Australian organic gardeners.
Grow your comfrey somewhere permanent where it can get its fat roots deep into the soil. Grow it next to the compost heap where you can cut it to the ground 4-5 times over summer to give your compost a real boost. It is also well suited to the understorey of a mixed orchard where you can slash it back for mulch, in fact regular slashing will encourage the roots to mine more minerals from the soil, making it available to plant roots as the leaves break down into the upper soils.
The unique combination of proteins, carbon, nitrogen, phosphates and high levels of potassium make for a potent compost additive that will breakdown rapidly making these, and many other trace elements, available to plants. Comfrey tea can be used as a fast-acting liquid feed and is easy to make by chopping leaves up and steeping them in water, leave for a couple of weeks (stirring daily) then dilute 1-5 in a watering can, the results will speak for themselves.
As we search for sustainable ways to garden in the future the use of comfrey has much to offer. Its ability to produce large quantities of biomass from within our own garden lessens our dependence on external sources of soil-improving materials. Less transport and less pressure on agricultural lands contribute to a lower carbon and more sustainable future.
