hello this is angela with parkrose permaculture it is a little bit of a blustery day here in portland
oregon i'm sitting in my permaculture food forest garden we're actually sitting in the sun trap
so behind me you can see a little bit of the orchard that rings the property
and a sun trap is a place to grow annual veggies where i have made sure that my garden design
does not have fruit trees nut trees berry bushes blocking the incoming sun
into the center of my garden because that's where i grow my annual veggies and annual veggies
like sunshine i've gotten a lot of requests about making this video and today is the day
the timing is right in permaculture we want to strike when the iron is hot we want to do things
in tune with the seasons when it's appropriate and now is the time of year for this chore so
here you can see a tomato behind me i have garlic and
squash and tree collards and all kinds of things in this bed and along the fence behind it i have
comfrey planted all along the fence i have comfrey all over my garden and it serves multiple purposes
you can check some of my older videos which i probably should remake but older videos about
why comfrey is a darling in permaculture why it is universally used in permaculture so this
is some vitamin f chanel and this is actually a hybrid which is a sterile variety called russian
baking 14. it does not set seed if you want to grow comfrey please know that when you plant it
you will have it there forever every little piece of root the size of your pinky nail or vigor can
start a whole new plant so as long as you have something that can vigorously regrow from root
cuttings you might as well help yourself and not get a variety that also will vigorously set seed
russian blocking 14 is sterile i get mine from kos comfrey certified organic great little company
you can check out my older videos for why i grow comfrey but today i want to utilize it for
one specific purpose and this is the time of year that i need to do that so comfrey is an herbaceous
perennial and it comes up pretty early in the spring now there's a comfrey back here that's
much shorter and that's because my ducks have mowed it to the ground they love comfrey but
this is what it looks like if it's not been pruned or cut at all since it came up early in the spring
when comfrey first comes up it forms these little hook like buds of flowers and they unfurl and
flower from the back down to the tip and you'll notice the succession of blossoms and when
all of the blossoms have faded and fallen off except for the ones on the very tip of
that curl you know it is time to cut your comfrey back and i cut it back all the way
to the ground that's usually the first week of june in my climate and the reason that i do that
is because i'm going to use those cuttings in my garden but also because when it is done flowering
it's down to the last set of blossoms if you cut it to the ground it will regrow all of this
will regrow and it will flower again in the end of july and august so i want to get as much bee
food and as much duck food and as much benefit out of this plant as i can so cutting a lot
of your herbaceous perennials back in june is good for them it's especially good for comfrey
so what am i going to do with all of these cuttings
this is a lot of green leafy material i could just put it in my compost
that'd be great i use it as mulch around my tomato plants i use it as food for my ducks
but i also make fermented comfrey tea with it so why make a fermented tea and how do we make it
comfrey is very very high in nitrogen and when you make a fermented tea you are creating a
nitrogen-rich organic fertilizer with a bunch of other trace minerals in it as well so it makes a
great plant feed now here in my climate toward the last week of june it's time
to fertilize my tomatoes i don't fertilize a lot of things in my garden i don't use inorganic salt
fertilizers which are terrible for the soil and yes i need to make a video on that subject
but i do go ahead and feed them a little bit because i don't have
perfect soil because i'm still working on building soil fertility even after 13 years
and i started with a very poor quality soil i want to give my plants a little bit of a boost
as my system is still coming into balance i can do that by giving them a feed of nitrogen rich
trace mineral rich comfrey fertilizer starting in late june so i need to make it now because
i did say fermented fertilizer so oh boy get ready y'all it's gonna stink to high heaven
but it needs about three weeks to brew and then it will be ready to use on my plants so
mother nature in my climate sure knows what she's doing the comfrey is done flowering right at the
time i need to cut it back and start fermenting the tea in order to have fertilizer ready at
the time i need to apply it to my tomatoes so the first thing i want to do is as you can see here we
are down to no blossoms left or one little blossom so this is how i know it's time to cut it back
you can see the one that the ducks munched on and has just started regrowing
this is what they look like when they're just beginning to open they unfurl starting at the
top here all the way down and when the very last one of these is open it looks like this
so this is a comfrey that is at the end of its bloom cycle i'm gonna take it here and i'm gonna
cut it all the way to the ground with hand pruners you can see on the far side where the ducks have
nibbled it through the fence now you might want to wear gloves for this comfy does have little hairs
that can be irritating to the skin for some people the other thing i use this fermented comfrey tea
for is that i use it as a foliar spray on all of my trees in my orchard to help feed them and give
them a little bit of an extra boost so let me go over how i make fermented concrete tea all right
we are now sitting in my side yard garden you can see my party geranium and marionberry behind me
and that's because i needed to be near the spigot and fill a five gallon bucket
two thirds to three quarters of the way full of water and to this bucket i am going to add the
comfrey that i just picked now this may seem like a lot but it will break down i have found that the
comfrey from one plant is just about right for a five gallon bucket batch of fermented comfrey tea
now be careful when you are folding and buckling the comfrey down into the bucket if there are
any blossoms there may be bees in your plant particularly bumble bees which i have noticed
will hang onto the blossoms long after i pick the plant so carefully fold it in here in the
water now i'm going to add a brick or two on top of this and let it sit for two to three weeks
that may seem like a long time and during those two to three weeks this will turn into a gross
brown sludge as the comfrey ferments in the bucket i liken it to the bog of eternal stench it smells
horrific it smells worse than fish emulsion worse than fermented kelp fertilizer it is
reeking and awful and you may want to put it somewhere away from your property line so that
your neighbors don't have to smell it but it will stink to high heaven so with this bog of eternal
stench brew in two to three weeks i'm going to take it and put one part of comfrey tea to
six parts of water and i'm going to use that on my tomatoes starting the end of june for
a weekly feeding throughout the season i will also use it as a foliar spray on my fruit trees and any
other plants i feel could use a boost throughout the season now this will store after you make it
i found i go through five gallons pretty quickly here because i have a lot of plants on my property
but if you make a batch of it it will store for over a year you can put it in old milk jugs or
something sealed just be aware that if you leave the plant matter in it it will continue to ferment
and potentially off gas and you may need to burp it just like a bottle of kombucha or something
but if you strain all of the fermented leaf matter off just the liquid can be kept in bottles
so i hope that gives you a good look at my process for making fermented comfrey tea
a nitrogen-rich amendment to add to your plants to give them a boost in your garden if you have
a permaculture garden and you don't want to fertilize but you are working on helping build
soil fertility and you don't have that incredibly healthy soil microbiome it's not going to hurt
to help your plants in this way give them a little boost while you bring your system into balance
with the addition of some fermented comfrey tea to the foliage or straight around the ground at
the roots of the plant you'll be doing your plants a service and increasing your yields
in your garden if you enjoyed this video please give it a thumbs up
and please subscribe you can also check out my patreon in the description i'll
be back soon with more about permaculture gardening and sustainable living thanks