Thursday, March 24, 2011

Experiment time. Brum brum.

Experiment time. Brum brum.

I've wanted to try this for some time now. A while ago I was told about putting a layer of comfrey in the bottom of your potato trenches due to the high amount of potassium, nitrogen  and other minerals available in the leaves. The thinking is that as the tatties grow the comfrey breakes down leaving the nutrients avaliable to the tatties, so, here goes.

First of all I decided harvest all the comfrey I have and then mow it all up making it easier to spread out in the trench and increase the speed at which it breaks down.
 Hummm, one big clump = about a third of a catcher on the mower. But wait, there's more :)
 Comfrey laid out in half the trench so it's back for more sultanas, um, comfrey
 Sprouted tatties from the Fruit and veg shop. And yes I know it's preferable to get certified seed tatties but when they sprout in your pantry it's hard not to stick them in the ground so I'll take my chances, fingers x'ed.

The tattie trench filled with comfrey and then covered with about an inch (25mm for you youngsters) or so of soil and the tatties placed on top and then the trench is filled.
And to top things off a nice biscuit or two of straw for mulch. Ta dah.

Now I'll just have to sit back and see what the results are.


What do you think?

Will it work?

Cheers and happy veggie growing to you,

Stewart

Progress Click here 

Final report Click here

6 comments:

Jason Dingley said...

You should do another trench without the comfrey and compare the results. Scientific experiment like. Clever use of the mower. May the natural forces be with you.

greenfumb said...

Rats, I planted mine yesterday without comfrey. Like Jason suggests I might do some more with it just to see what happens. Or since I am short of space I could jsut dig them all up and start again.

My Veggie Garden said...

Yes, It's not like they're lettuce seeds.
I'd like to know what you think if you go ahead.

Unknown said...

Great post Stewart, I love the step by step pictorial how-to.
I heard about comfrey as a compost starter ages ago: if you google comfrey and compost you get a range of sites discussing the benefits of putting it in your compost.
Me? I don't have room for either taters OR compost in my pocket handkerchief veggie garden.

Tania said...

Thank you for this information, I look forward to seeing how your potato crop goes.

Great pictorial post..

Tania

My Veggie Garden said...

Thanks Jill and Tania, and yes tatties are a luxury if you have a small veggie patch. I don't plant many any more, I find most of mine come up from little spuddies that I leave behind and they sprout by themselves and I just nurture them along from there.