Comfrey

 Comfrey 

Comfrey is a tall, perennial, herb plant, also known as boneset because it was used to heal broken bones. The word comfrey comes from the Latin word for "grow together". It is a member of the Boraginaceae family, which also include borage, forget-me-nots,

The plant grows well in damp places and can stand full sun.  The common plant can easily get out of control in a garden, so would not normally be deliberately introduced unless it was a really large garden.  In the 1950s the organic pioneer Lawrence Hills (founder of the organisation now known as Garden Organic formerly the Henry Doubleday Research Association (HDRA)) developed a strain of Russian comfrey named Bocking 14 which is sterile and won’t seed itself all around the garden. 

It can be propagated by root cuttings although my patch is spread so well I have never needed to do it.

 What makes it a Good Fertilizer?

Comfrey has deep taproot, and large root system which pulls nutrients from way down in the subsoil, where most other plants can't reach. Comfrey is high in just about every nutrient a plant needs, including the big 3, Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium, and many trace elements. It can be used as a ‘Mineral Dam’ utilizing minerals that would usually be washed away by storing them in the leaves.

Its high carbon to nitrogen value means that it does not deplete nitrogen from the soil, as it decomposes. In fact, it becomes a good source of nitrogen. And it has more potassium than composted manure.

You can use the leaves in 3 main ways: as a liquid feed, as a compost activator or straight into or on the soil as a plant fertiliser, there are variations on this and here are a few.

Comfrey Uses

Fertilizer - Comfrey leaves contain a great balance of major plant nutrients (N,P,K) and can be feed to plants as powder, direct mulch or by steeping chopped Comfrey leaves in water for several weeks to produce a thick, dark liquid that can be diluted with water and applied to plant roots. I’ve decided to only use this outside this year and not in the tunnel as it can be very smelly.

As a trench fertiliser and as a mulch - Line potato or bean trenches with comfrey leaves and cover with a thin layer of soil. After planting, fill the trench as usual, and the comfrey leaves will be broken down by the soil bacteria to provide a potassium-rich fertiliser. Alternatively place a layer of leaves around the growing plants. This will not only slowly rot down to provide nutrients, but also act as a mulch to help control weeds.

Comfrey compost activator and leaf mould - Place cut or bruised comfrey leaves in alternate layers throughout your compost heap. This will encourage bacterial action causing the heap to heat up and speed up the composting process. This could make a fine medium for growing seeds although small amounts are recommended as it can be a bit strong for seedlings.

Medicinal Use - Comfrey has been cultivated, at least, since 400 BC as a healing herb. The Greeks and Romans commonly used Comfrey to stop heavy bleeding, treat bronchial problems and heal wounds and broken bones.

Biomass - Comfrey produces large amounts of foliage from late May until hard frosts in October or November. The plant is excellent for producing mulch.

Biodiversity  - The bell shaped flowers provide nectar and pollen to many species of bees and other insects from late May until the first frosts in late Autumn. Lacewings are said to lay eggs on Comfrey and Spiders overwinter on the plant. Parasitic Wasps and Spiders will hunt on and around Comfrey.

Pest and Disease Prevention and Control - Research indicates that a comfrey solution can be used to prevent powdery mildew. Pest predators such as spiders, lacewings and parasitic wasps associate with this plant. Its best to leave some plants alone in order to sustain pest predator relationships.

Ground Cover – Some species can quickly spread to form a thick ground cover and work particularly well for ground cover on the sunny side under shrubs and trees. Symphytum tuberosum - Tuberous Comfrey is a great ground cover option. 

Animal Fodder - Comfrey has a long history for use as an animal feed. Fresh leaves can be eaten by pigs, sheep, and poultry but cattle, rabbits and horses will usually only consume wilted leaves.

Human Consumption - Symphytum officianale  and Symphytum x uplandicum are both reported to be used for salad and potherb and are best when cooked. I won’t be trying it myself though. I’ll stick to nettles.

The Virtues of Cucumbers

 Cucumber Uses?

Can you eat cucumbers? I know a lot of people who turn down the offer of a sandwich if they see even the thinnest slice of the gourd sticking out from the bread as they can produce wind and indigestion. Although they are about 98% water there’s something in them that just doesn’t agree with a lot of people. 

It could be one of a load of trace elements like vitamin B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, Folate (naturally occurring folic acid), Vitamin C, Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, Iron, Zinc and Phosphorus, but it’s more likely to be something in the skin called Cucurbitacin, which acts as a deterrent for plants in the gourd family keeping pests from nibbling and breaking the skin of the vegetable.  Cucurbitacin is an excellent natural pest control substance and widely used,  but might not agree with your insides.

I called the cucumber a vegetable, but is it? Carrying on from my question last week about if an onion is a root vegetable or not, I’ll ask you this: “Is a cucumber a fruit or vegetable”. It turns out it depends who you talk to.

In horticulture: cucumber is a vegetable.

 The division of vegetable and fruit cultivation in horticulture is that everything that grows on herbaceous plants is a vegetable and everything that grows on a woody plant is a fruit.

Cucumbers don’t grow on a woody plant, but on an herbaceous plant. Therefore the cucumber is seen as a vegetable.

Botany:  Vegetable or fruit?

Neither ‘vegetable’ nor ‘fruit’ is a botanical term. Vegetables are all the edible parts of the plant. In botany, fruits, flowers, leaves and stems can all be seen as vegetables. According to botanists a fruit is the part of the plant that develops from a flower. It’s also the section of the plant that contains the seeds. Therefor a cucumber is most likely a fruit although I wouldn’t like then with custard.

Growing Cucumbers

I’ve had a few great cucumber climbers in my tunnel in the past. They are not too hard to grow if you get the right varieties. . There are two distinct types for growing and it’s worth checking if you are planning to grow them outside.

Outdoor cucumbers are referred to as ‘ridge cucumbers’ and will tolerate cooler climates like ours. They are often spiny or rough to the touch. Greenhouse cucumbers form smoother fruits but do need that extra warmth for success. Some varieties will happily grow inside or out, in a sunny, sheltered spot in the garden. 

Cucumber seeds can be sown in a propagator around now and in May to June if you plan to sow the seeds directly outdoors.

Sow the cucumber seeds on their sides at a depth of 1cm in 7.5cm pots of free-draining, seed sowing compost. Place the pots in a propagator or seal them inside a plastic bag at a temperature of 20°C until they germinate. This usually only takes 7-10 days.

Once they’ve germinated, you can move them to a bright windowsill and grow them there until they’re big enough to be transplanted into their final growing place.

There are a lot of claims about the virtues of cucumbers. I’ve listed a few more believable ones here. Take them all with a pinch of salt I’ve only tested the one that claims it shines shoes (it doesn’t) The rest I’ll probably never get around to testing. As long as the cucumbers liven up my cheese sandwich I’m a happy man.

The Apparent Virtues of Cucumbers

If you tend to get chronic constipation, cucumbers can get things moving again. Cucumbers contain an enzyme called erepsin, which helps the body digest protein.

Cucumber contains a touch of silicon, sulphur sodium, calcium, and phosphorus, which are the vital ingredients for long, beautiful hair. So you can eat it, wash in it, and drink it.

If you want to stop your bathroom mirror from fogging up while you shower, simply rub a cucumber over it before you hop in the shower. It’s cleaner than soap.

You can polish shoes by rubbing a cucumber slice over them. Polish with a soft, dry cloth.

Could help ease sunburn.

Although it won’t last as long as the real thing, if you need something lubricated and you are out of WD-40, you can rub a slice of cucumber on the area.

Remove most crayons, markers, and pen marks by rubbing them with the outside of a cucumber.

Take a slice of cucumber and rub it on the surface you want to clean. Not only will it remove years’ worth of undesirable stains, but it will bring back the shine without leaving streaks.

Are Shallots Root Vegetables? And other ramblings...

 Are shallots root vegetables?

It’s a good time to buy seeds now if you haven’t done already. It’s a job I put off until the last minute because up here in Inishowen we don’t need to follow the sowing instructions too closely. We seem about a month behind most of the country with plant growth. 

Another reason I delay is the knock on effect that buying seeds has. It’s easy enough buying the seeds, but they germinate and get really big really quickly so that entails getting the ground ready to plant out. The seeds have now been sown in cells in the polytunnel so I have only a few weeks to get everything sorted. The pressure!  It won’t take too long though and if I wait until the ground is drier later this month I won’t drag half the soil into the house in muddy clumps on my boots. 

Edibles

We’re being really minimalist with our edibles choice this year, so much so we didn’t need to order from online growers, we just went to our local DIY centre. Broccoli seeds have been planted of course, that’s a staple in our house, and we also have beans, courgettes, chard, lettuce, rocket, mange tout and broad beans all put out to germinate. 

As usual there are no root vegetables on the growing list- or peas this year. We do get one flush of pods but I can never get to grips with the successive sowing malarkey. Every year try and every year the plants all produce at the same time. They always seem to catch up with one another so I’m not bothering. I prefer frozen peas anyway (although I’d never confess to that in public)

If you have planted anything out, edible or ornamental it’s a good idea to keep on top of the weeds. Just a few minutes getting rid of the young growth will save you hours later in the season. Get the hoe out on a dry day and then you can just leave the plant tops to die off in the sun. Tap roots will still need to be prized out of the ground though.

 

Cat Plant Update

Some of the cat plants are proving to be very popular. I had a lot of catnip plug seedlings for sale and they all got snapped up by feline lovers around the country. I haven’t sold one catgrass plug still though so they will be going on the compost heap before the self-seed everywhere. There are no psychoactive chemicals in the grass as there is in the Nip, so the cats just aren’t going crazy for it. 

Irish Moss in decline

My other good seller in small plugs is Irish Moss (Sagina Subulata). These make great groundcover and bear tiny white flowers in summer.

I didn’t know this until now though that this plant is actually on the decline in Ireland restricting itself to a few bare rocky areas of heathy sea cliffs. So much so that if you happen to spot them in the north we are asked to report any sightings to CEDaR, National Museums Northern Ireland.

You wouldn’t think that was the case in my garden though as it seems to self-set everywhere and is moving itself up the exhaustive “Weed List” just below bittercress and chickweed.

The only recent sighting records of them in the wild are from the sea cliffs around Ballycastle, but I’ll bet we can find some hidden away around the peninsula of we look hard enough.

It’s good to know I’m doing something responsible helping the plant to survive. The cause for the rapid decline hasn’t been assessed yet but as they produce thousands of seeds per plant, with a bit of careful cultivation and planting I’m sure we’ll keep Irish Moss on the hillsides (or in our gardens anyway) 

Butt out

If you have a water butt I’d recommend getting it cleaned out before summer. If it’s emptied now it can get refilled with fresh rainwater as there is no shortage of it at the moment. I did mine last week as it was getting a bit smelly. 

Correction – or is it?

I’ve just been reminded we have a fish box full of shallots this year and to some these are seen as ‘root vegetables’. Are onions root vegetables though? Bulbs are modified stems with roots attached which we don’t eat. I’m not convinced they are root vegetables. What do you think?

Time for Cuttings

 Bay cutting

My two latest plug plant choices I’m growing don’t seem to be in huge demand.  I have small Pipolia clover and cat grass up for sale and at the time of writing this I haven’t made a sale. I’ve even taken to offering a bag of the seeds to go with the plugs to sweeten the deal. All to no avail. 

Grew Well but Didn’t Sell

I’m quite sure the reason is that these plants grow so easily from seed. Why bother buying the small plugs when you can just broadcast the seeds all over the garden or in trays?  I didn’t grow too many of them and they were a bit of an experiment anyway so my own lawn will benefit from the plugs. My next venture will be the Tigernuts I mentioned last week and I have some planted in cells. I’m quite sure these will not be good sellers either, partly due again to the fact that you can grow them really easily yourself and more likely because the could turn out to be the biggest garden weed you have had since the perennial nasturtium.

I do have a plant that could have the potential to become popular – catnip (Nepeta cataria) . The drug of choice for your domesticated moggie. Just one sniff of the nepetalactone stimulant in the plant makes a lot of cats act very strange for a while and they seem to really enjoy it. Just as a matter of interest if you don’t have access to Google, it’s nontoxic and harmless to the cat- just fun for us to watch. I have lemon catmint and regular catmint too and these can also be propagated from seed, but it’s a lot quicker to take cuttings (which again will mean I probably won’t be selling may)

There are a lot of plants that can be propagated in this way. Similar to mint we have coleus, busy lizzie and a lot of herbs which have nodes on the stems where the roots grow, just by putting them in water.

Plant Cuttings

Rooted cuttings are often sturdier than seedlings, and come to maturity faster, many of them bearing flowers and fruits much earlier than seedlings. 

Plants grown from cuttings are exact clones of the parent plant, so you know exactly what you’re growing, which is not the case with seed-grown plants. That’s why many gardeners prefer to grow new plants from cuttings even when they can be easily grown from seeds. I worked with a parks gardener who would only propagate cuttings from their pelargoniums from overwintered plants as she knew exactly what she was growing. This also saved the council a lot of money on new stock and is also a cost effective method of populating our own gardens.

Some plants are sterile; they do not make viable seeds. This is the case with many naturally occurring and artificially developed hybrids and a lot are copyrighted which makes growing them from cuttings even more fun. 

For successful propagation, cuttings should be taken at the right time, especially for plants that change their growth pattern according to seasonal changes. There are different types of cuttings depending on the age of the stems from which they are taken.

Types Of Cuttings 

Softwood cuttings.  Taken in late spring or early summer from new shoots . The soft, flexible, green stems should be kept moist with frequent misting or covering with polythene. They readily take root and get established in the same season.

Semi-ripe cuttings. Taken in summer from slightly matured stems of that season, they may take a bit longer than softwood cuttings to take root, but the warmth of the summer months helps with root growth.

Hardwood cuttings. Taken in late summer/autumn and winter from mature, woody stems, they are ready for planting in next spring. Ideally, the cuttings should be prepared as soon as the shrubs start shedding leaves so that they can grow enough roots before the spring flush of shoot growth.

You can use different parts of the stem to grow new plants, and some plants can be propagated from leaf and root cuttings too like begoias.

Tip cuttings.  Cuttings from the growing tip of the stem is taken just below a node. Most herbs can be grown like this.

Basal cuttings. A side branch is taken, cutting it as close to the main stem. Verbenas and cosmos grow well from basel cuttings.

Heel cuttings. A lot of shrubs require a bit of the old stem for successful rooting. The side branches can be pulled off the parent plant so that they contain a part of the main stem (heel). Conifers are propagated a lot in this way.

Stem sections.  Cane forming plants such as bamboo can be propagated by midsections of their long stems.

Root sections. Some plants are easier to grow from root cuttings than stem cuttings, think rhubarb. A few roots can be dug up in the dormant season without harming the parent plant, and divided into several sections. More examples would be raspberry, blackberry, rose, phlox, crabapple and lilac.

Leaf cuttings.  Many succulents grow new plants from whole leaves, but for begonias all you need to do is place the leaf on soil and put slits in it and new plants grow from these. Gardening is magical.

Choosing a Bonsai Pot

 A few homemade unglazed Bonsai pots

There are quite a few factors to take into consideration when growing bonsai trees (or “small tree in a container”).

There’s the type of tree you choose, it’s location in the house or garden, watering, soil mix and the pot it sits in to think about before you delve into how to keep the plants alive. But don’t let this scare you off from having a go.  

What type of tree is suitable?

A bonsai tree has quite a hard life being trimmed and trained so not every species will be appropriate.

One particularly beginner-friendly variety of bonsai tree is the juniper. They respond well to pruning and training to shape and, because they are evergreens, never lose their leaves. They are rather slow growing, however.

Other conifers commonly cultivated as bonsai trees include pines, spruces, and cedars of many varieties. Deciduous (leafy) trees are another possibility - Japanese maples are especially beautiful, as are magnolias, elms, and oaks. Finally, some non-woody tropical plants, like jade are good choices for indoor environments in cool or temperate climates.

Indoor or Outdoor?

Decide whether you plan on having an indoor or outdoor tree. The needs of indoor and outdoor bonsai trees can vary drastically. Generally, indoor environments are drier and receive less light than outdoor environments, so you'll want to choose trees with lower light and moisture requirements. 

Indoor suggestion: Ficus, Gardenia, Camellia, Boxwood.

Outdoor suggestion: Juniper, Cypress, Cedar, Maple, Birch, Beech, Ginkgo, Larch, Elm.

Note that temperate species require winter dormancy or the tree will eventually die. They cannot be grown indoors for long periods of time.

Making a Start

To save on stress levels choose a young cheaper specimen. Bonsai trees come in a wide variety of sizes. Full-grown trees can be as small as 6 inches (15.2 cm) tall to as large 3 feet (0.9 m) tall, depending on their species. An even cheaper option is to grow your tree from a seedling. Larger plants require more water, soil, and sunlight so if you do choose to grow your bonsai tree from a seed you will have more control as well as needing  more patience- it can take up to 5 years (depending on the species of tree)

 Select a pot.

The hallmark feature of bonsai trees is that they are planted in pots that restrict their growth. I’ve been having a go at making some stoneware pots myself this year and it’s made me realise there are as many pots as there are bonsai trees. An important factor in deciding which pot to use is to make sure it is large enough to allow enough soil to cover the roots of the plant. When you water your tree, it absorbs moisture from the soil through its roots. The pot will need drainage holes and smaller holes for threading wire through to help support the tree if needed. I’m putting one large hole in the centre and three or four small holes along the outside to hold the wires.

Scale is an important factor as well.  Overly-large pots can dwarf the tree itself, giving a bizarre or mismatched appearance. A pot big enough for the tree's roots, but not much bigger is ideal but you will need to keep a close eye on the watering. 

The idea is for the pot to complement the tree aesthetically, but to be relatively unobtrusive visually.

Some prefer to grow their bonsai trees in plain, practical containers, and then transfer them to prettier containers when they're full-grown. This is an especially useful process if your species of bonsai tree is a fragile one, as it allows you to put off the purchase of the more expensive pot until your tree is healthy and beautiful.

The pots may be made out of ceramic, concrete, plastics, but what is considered a classic bonsai pot is that it is made of ceramic or porcelain, and that it is stoneware like the ones I am making, firing them up to 1250 degrees in a kiln, which means that it absorbs and holds no water in the material meaning less evaporation and drying out.

When it comes to choosing the glaze for a pot, I’m looking to see that the colour appears in the tree. There are a lot of colours of bark, leaves, fruit and flowers to match up a complimentary colour. I might go for unglazed brown, grey and earth tones for now until I know what I’m doing with the pots and what type of tree I’ll be growing.

The goal is to create harmony.  – The pots should add to but not take away or detract from the beauty of the tree.