Propagating comfrey is fast and easy! 

Comfrey is considered by many to be one of the essential permaculture/homestead plants.  It has so many uses on the homestead that it easy to defend that viewpoint.  From powerful medicinal, to plentiful animal fodder, and soil conditioner/compost activator, comfrey literally does it all!  Comfrey is relatively simple to propagate.  Back towards the end of May I did some root cuttings from a couple of starts that I put in pots back in February.

As an aside, the only time you should really put a comfrey plant in a pot would be specifically for root propagation.  Comfrey develops a deep tap root so it really isn’t suited for life in a pot.  The pots just makes getting the root cuttings super simple and convenient.  Potting them up like this a great way to get a lot of cuttings fast!  Using this technique you can really ramp up comfrey production quickly.

Anyway I finally got start to finish photo documentation of the entire process from initial separation to cuttings pushing up leaves. So here we go:

So there you go: from starting out with two inch cuttings in Feb, making the cuttings in May, and now the plants are ready to be propagated again in July.  I have little comfrey plants popping up all over in my garden and under the trees, and I’m getting ready to do some more next week.  I think this time I’ll share cuttings with whoever wants some, and maybe run the crown through for a third round!  Comfrey is super simple to propagate and a prolific producer of a multitude of homestead and garden products.  It just makes you wonder why there isn’t comfrey growing on every homestead!

One thing to remember when planting your cuttings is that since it is so easily propagated by root cuttings you want to put it someplace where you will not be tilling.  Another simple way to spread comfrey is to just rototill through a plant or two, and the next year you’ll go from a couple plants to a nice big patch.  I guess that might be why comfrey isn’t on every homestead, it can get out of control if you don’t manage it correctly.