Teaching Garden Update: Making Comfrey Fertilizer Tea

Last Saturday at the Zilker Botanical Gardens teaching gardens we cut back our Comfrey plant to make a tea to use as a fertilizer. Comfrey is a bio-accumulator and with its deep tap roots scavenge the nutrients in the soil. Some gardeners use a solution of comfrey tea as a foliar spray to prevent powdery mildew. Application on the leaves of plants can help to prevent the spores from germinating.

Comfrey can also be used to activate compost, chop and drop as green manure, you can dry and powder to use as fertilizer, condition soil in future gardens. Comfrey can also be used as a mordant in natural dying process.

We planted comfrey last fall from a rhizome.