Our First Attempt At Comfrey Tea

We'd heard all the rave reviews for this free wonder-food for plants, with the odd name of "comfrey tea" - what the heck is it? Well it turns out that you need a comfrey plant or two to get going (unsurprisingly) so we got one planted and it has come back thriving and healthy this year.

Step One - Find a nice clean bucket/container, with a tight lid. Alternatively a nice plastic milk bottle will do absolutely fine. Allow both parties to spend a little time together before the magic happens, so they can exchange family details etc, and generally feel comfortable in each other's company.

Remove comfrey leaves/stems about 20cm long (that's eight inches in old-fashioned), half a dozen is ideal. Comfrey leaves have a LOT of tiny soft prickles on the underside, so wearing gloves is recommended. Pop them into the bottle (or container).

Add water up to about a couple of centimetres from the top. You DO NOT need secateurs at this point, no idea why they are in this picture. Shake the bottle to agitate the leaf and water mixture.

 

Final step is to store somewhere secure. In five weeks there should be a lovely liquid plant feed, which you dilute in water to the ratio one part comfrey tea, ten parts water. What a brilliant, cheap, natural aid to help your garden grow!

 

16 Apr 17 - What's Growing?

 

This year "Tom" is for our root veg, there are three rows of potatoes in nearest the camera. Bit further away there are two rows of onions, one each of white and red varieties, and at the far end two rows of carrots which seem to be doing well. On the right we planted way too much garlic, and there's also half a row of spring onion just sown. We just want some lovely growing weather now!

 

In the middle is "Dick", this year's legumes bed. Nothing here so far except the bean frame that Sam built last week (good work dude) and next to that half a row of newly-sown cos lettuce.

However, the runner beans seedlings are going great guns at home and we're looking forward to seeing them in the ground at Plot 13D....

 

And finally there's "Harry", which in 2017 will be home to brassicas etc. Just one row of radish and half a row of spinach sown so far, within the last day or two.

 

And on the other side nothing is happening apart from the rhubarb and strawberries - disappointingly, JP has so far done nothing with the area that he pestered us to let him have for himself....

15 Apr 17 - Long Day, Hard Work

I spent five hours working on the allotment on Saturday, the time flew by and the results are rather pleasing. The far end veg bed (aka "Harry") was completely overgrown when I arrived, but by the time I left it was cleared, levelled, fertilised and sown with a row of radish (Scarlet Globe).

We've placed some spare thick planks in between Tom, Dick and Harry, they act well as paths and add definition and good looks (in my opinion).

The strawberry box was weeded, fertilised and the strawbs given a nice new cosy bed of hay (90p per bag from the pet shop in Seaford).

The rhubarb is in full growth and was intruding onto JP's section of ground, so I dug a trench and boxed it in a little with yet another plank. I also plucked the first three stalks, and they'll be eaten later on Monday in a crumble for tea.

This chap was also spotted nestling bold as brass in amongst the garlic, we're not sure if it is harmful or not but as long as he doesn't cause any mischief we're happy for him to stay for a while...

Competition Win - And The Spuds Are In!

We struck it lucky on Friday when we won a packet of lovely Purple Prince zinnia seeds from Mister Fothergill's Seeds. There will be way too many for us so if you fancy some small plants to place in your own garden let us know!

We also popped our first earlies and maincrop potatoes in at the weekend, first earlies are Pentland Javelin and the mains are Maris Piper. Have you any experience of growing these for yourself?

Very chuffed to see our onions apparently romping away and loving being able to stretch their roots in open ground. All the white onions have taken but only 15 of 21 red onion sets have made it.