Make fertilizer yourself: comfrey manure is ideal for vegetables
Created: 08/08/2022, 08:00
By: Ines Alms
Summer is the right time to make comfrey manure yourself: it is a great fertilizer for tomatoes, zucchini and other vegetables.
Tomatoes, peppers, zucchini or other types of vegetables that consume a lot have a high nutritional requirement and therefore a lot to eat.
Comfrey, on the other hand, has a lot to give: The herb contains numerous minerals and trace elements that can be used to fertilize in a completely natural way.
However, the comfrey liquid manure has a small catch: it smells a bit strong at first.
Make fertilizer yourself: comfrey manure is ideal for vegetables
Comfrey (Symphytum officinale) is a natural plant strengthener and medicinal plant at the same time.
© blickwinkel/Imago
Comfrey (Symphytum officinale) is not only attractive to bees and bumblebees.
It also gains its right to exist in the garden as a robust ground cover, as a supplier of mulch material and as a natural plant strengthener in the form of liquid manure or plant broth.
Those who have not grown the plant before can also often find it on river banks.
Since the leaves of the plant contain plenty of nitrogen, potassium, silicic acid and phosphate, they meet the best requirements for an organic fertilizer.
It promotes the growth of plants and makes vegetables, but also potted plants, more resistant to pathogens such as fungi and pests such as aphids or spider mites.
All you need to make comfrey manure is water, a bucket and some time
As the gardener Hendrik Noßmann explains to the
Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR)
, a comfrey manure can be easily made as follows:
Cut the comfrey close to the ground and chop the plant.
Fill a bucket about two-thirds full with comfrey (about a kilogram of leaves to ten liters of water).
Fill the container with water.
Those who have rainwater available should prefer this.
Cover the bucket with an airy cover and let the broth steep for at least 14 days - preferably in partial shade - stirring occasionally.
The fermenting mixture starts to stink, blisters and turns brown.
When it stops foaming, drain the manure through a sieve.
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Even if the strong odor dissipates, the comfrey manure is very intense and should not be used pure.
Therefore, it is diluted at least in a ratio of one to ten.
Then into the watering can and once a week get to the vegetables - but only on the bottom, not on the leaves.
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