The message
from "David Hare-Scott" contains these words:


"peter" wrote in message
u...
Hi all,

I'm curious to hear what herbs others have used for feeding thier gardens.
I've found out heaps about Comfrey and it sounds real easy to grow,
harvest
and use. It also reads as being a very valuable food source for plants,
especially flowering plants.

Be aware that those minerals in comfrey don't come from nowhere. Whatever
minerals comfrey may gather up that may be useful in your compost or on your
garden come from the soil where it grew. This may be a handy way to adjust
the nitrogen balance of your compost but it may also deplete the soil where
the comfrey grows.

Since comfrey can be grown easily in very poor soil, gardeners tend
to locate the omfrey bed where nothing ornamental or edible grows;
behind a shed, or on rough uncultivated ground. It's a longterm/
permanent crop, so any soil mineral depletion is unlikely to affect
other plants. I leave it in place for at least 10 years and occasionally
give it some seaweed or horsemanure; but you could also probably very
usefully use it as a natural digester of droppings from pets .


There are that some plants (legumes) that host nitrogen fixing bacteria
(that is they make nitrogen compounds out of "thin air'') and these plants
can be used as a green manure to improve the nitrogen content of the soil.
Comfrey is not in this category. In the long term growing legumes may be a
better proposition for providing nitrogen compounds.

The nitrogen fixed by legumes is accumulated in nodules on their
roots. Harvesting the leaf for compost use would not transfer the
nitrogen from the root nodules to the compost. When grown as a green
manure, the whole plant, roots and leaf, is tilled into the soil,
boosting N and humus.

Janet.

Janet.