Comfrey, or what we did on the back steps.

 Oddly, for a country child, brought up with dirty knees and a comprehensive knowledge of wildflowers, I had never heard of Comfrey until the seventies when it became the fashionable garden herb of choice of well - informed incomers from the leafy suburbs of South London. Rightly so as it turned out because Comfrey is indeed a stalwart of the garden and it wasn't  long before I was tryimg to contain it's abundant habits!  Ruled by Saturn, this knarly rooted, earthy beast likes damp, semi-shade best though it is long-suffering and will grow anywhere as long as it's watered in dry weather, it certainly does OK in our sandy soil but loves clay banks and ditches best. It is most easily grown from root cuttings; you  don't need to buy expensive Russian Comfrey - though it is the best, the native chap does a fine job. Culpepper says that the white flowered variety is better than the bluish purple, prettier one.  I have both white and pink and agree with Old Nick that the white is best! It's roots are thick, dark skinned and brittle, branching out in all directions. They break easily, revealing white, juicy flesh. The leaves and stems are covered in scratchy hairs and have lots of slimy juice.
 Its uses are manifold. It is a fantastic natural fertiliser,  the leaves producing 2-3 times as much potassium as farmyard manure as well as nitrogen, phosphorous and minerals. We make a liquid feed simply by making a drainage hole in a clean plastic bucket, stuffing ithe bucket with comfrey leaves and stems and wetting it with a little water. Cover and leave in a warm place above another container and before long the juice will drain out  and is ready to use, diluted to the colour of tea. It's best as a foliar  feed - spray onto leaves after sunset or in cloudy weather. It's also a great compost activator and we always make sure that plenty of comfrey goes into our compost bins. One word of warning! This stuff stinks - there's no other word for it so don't make it in the airing cupboard - or anywhere too close to your open windows!
  The medicinal uses of  Comfey are well known and loved by anyone who has ever used it. A quick trawl through the wisdom of Mr Google threw up some alarmist research from an American University which had isolated pyrrolizidine alkaloids which in large enough quantities damages the liver. Their advice was not to take it internally at all.  Given that Irish peasants used to eat it young as a vegetable (yuck!) and it is described as a gentle and effective cure for several internal maladies, I think this is a tad excessive but I don't personally swallow the stuff nor would I give it to anyone else. The same article however advises that it should not be used on broken skin which alerted my bull---- detectors ! You will notice allantoin - the active curative constituent of comfrey in many skin preparations these days,it helps the body make new cells and reduces inflammation so it's a drug company's dream ingredient and they don't  want you making your own! That's my personal opinion which I will stand by to  the end. I've watched a bit of that dreadful programme on the idiot box, 'All watched over by machines of loving grace' and though this may be wildly unfashionable, I'll stick with folklore thank you very much. If the good Lord meant us to use allantoin on its own , it would have grown on its own. End of Rant!
    Seriously, I and lots of others have used this on ourselves and our children for donkey's years without coming to any harm. Some years ago, a wildchild friend of mine drove her car along a stone wall with her arm out of the window on the way home from a party where she had consumed more than was good for her. Her arm was a mess to say the least (Not to mention her nice little Triumph Herald ) Broken glass, stuck into deeply grazed upper arm and she refused to go to hospital, turning up on my doorstep in the small hours ask ing for help. Sterilising everything, I mashed up a large pestle and mortar full of comfrey, poured boiling water over it and made a poultice with layers of muslin against the skin which I bandaged on and refused to allow her out of my house for the rest of the night while we both got some sleep.  Later that day we  removed the poultice which we found to be full of broken glass! The arm looked a lot better if a little green so we cleaned it up again and repeated the process. Off she went about her nefarious pursuits and I didn't see her again for a week or two. The arm had healed, no infection, hardly any scarring. I thanked the patron saint of the blind leading the blind and developed a lasting respect and faith in this humble plant which the bees love most in my garden.
 The ointment we made last week was the one we used years ago when my daughter was a little girl and we used Petroleum jelly. I'm not even going to tell you how we did it because it involves camping stoves and the flashpoint of Vaseline - I'm an Arian and stupid enough to do idiotic things but you're not going to if I can help it. There are several very good recipes on the internet using Almond oil and Beeswax which I am about to try along with Elderflower ointment for dry skin along the same lines. Do try it though, I'm sure you'll be pleased you did - ours is pretty good too!