Wow, I knew it may take a while but that was a tougher learning experience than what I was hoping for you 
1 Like
It’s not just you. Myself and a friend had plants go right into flower this late spring/early summer. Mine is probably going to be ready to harvest next month. He already took his down. Mine were bag seeds and none of the sisters flowered when I put them out. His was a photo from a breeder. In each case, no auto genes.
2 Likes
I started some new comfrey cuttings today! I got mine about 5 years ago from Coe’s Comfrey. I like the comfrey from Coe and the extra 20 or so DVD’s they include on different conspiracy theory’s (crop circles, chemtrails, aliens and such) 
(I’m not joking every plant you get these DVDs.) Never watched the DVD’s but I planted the comfrey.
@Badger I put my plants indoor on the exact day\night of the day I put them out. I do this from day one. You can look this up online. I think this year I used May 15 or something. It keeps the plants from stressing out.
5 Likes
You mean the same hours of daylight?
My mother has some comfrey cuttings starting in her yard. This way, once I get a place, I will know where to get them in the meantime I will be stealing her leaves when I can. I look forward to it for sure.
I just hope someone else can keep from having this experience by reading this. Hell, it was 20 bucks in clones. High hopes, yes, but I havent grown in awhile. I have a couple that didn’t do this. I’ve been updating their progress on my fun with hole digging thread.
3 Likes
I’m sorry to hear that. Any clones I get next year will get slowly weaned off of longer hours before they go outside.
2 Likes
Actually, it worked out in my favor. My meds are getting LOW and this one looks like it should be finishing in about a month. My buddy, not much luck. He grows in a greenhouse and he got some bud rot, had to pull that girl early. I told him even with the lack of weight, it will be speedy lol Not my cup of tea, would make me paranoid AF, but he’s cool with it…
I wish you the best of luck!
1 Like
And I learned the same, you’re supposed to match the light indoors with outside. My biggest fear was that it would reveg and then have to catch up, stressing and hermies. Not so much, from the looks of it. It’s night here now, I will post a pic here tomorrow if I remember lol
3 Likes
I think I set it for like 5:45 am on and 8:30 pm off? (I can’t remember exactly). This is the exact time on the date I plan on setting the plants outdoors.
It takes away one more plant stresser. With outdoor growing it is important to control everything possible. One less thing to worry about.
1 Like
Baby steps ! Doesn’t have to all happen at once taking your time along the way and learning is the most rewarding thing you will find out along the way !
2 Likes
M2 Iv had plants look better indoors just sitting in front of an upstairs window with a southern exposure my lights are crap will some day get a tent and a dyi led setup going in my basement but the available space now dictates differently.
1 Like
Ahh you’d be pretty surprised what organicS can do for ya in short time when ya get things a clicking for ya!
1 Like
When starting a new comfrey bed just be sure that’s where you want to plant them they are a plant for life once planted there no digging those roots up their like tree roots and they go deep!
4 Likes
I got ya Tommy. When I bought these clones they were already under 18/6. Not knowing better, I just put them outside. Next time around I will adjust them down accordingly.
I had to explain to my mother that it’s a commitment to plant a comfrey. She likes the fact that they will be good for her butterflies.
I do agree that once my soil has cooked, it has been pretty simple once I got plants in it. They are looking pretty great. I learned to be more preventative with my spraying, stupid mites.
I would like someone to learn from my mistake, and not make it themself. Next year, things will look better. I’ll just be glad to pull a harvest this year. I am enjoying the process as well. I missed it.
3 Likes
I got cuttings online from a farm on the Canadian east coast and they went horizontally into the rest of my garden! Now I am digging up the shoots almost daily to try to get all the roots that went to the sides. I have no idea how many years I may be doing this, so watch out folks!
3 Likes
That’s odd. The planting instructions I read said to plant them just like that. That’s no good.
2 Likes
Regarding Comfrey… you need to make sure you get Russian Bocking #14 as it is the only non-invasive type and will stay put.
4 Likes
Ya Iv not had any experience with other types of comfrey but mine only has 1 root and it goes straight down and doesn’t spread at all ,have had For 3-4 years now maybe sounds like yours is spreading by rhizome type of roots? If it’s reseeding itself this could be the problem also cut those flowers off if that the case . Do you have pics by any chance @cannaloop?
3 Likes
Glad you have the right one @Tinytuttle
I removed as much of the mass from the initial planting and that’s where the red circle is on the following photo. You can see the two shoots coming up there. Then the arrows are where there are shoots coming up where it never was and the bigger arrow points to where there is one coming up 4 feet away under the potatoes. And they camouflage VERY well under potatoes.
You can see that with most of what I removed, there are pieces of root/rhizomes and they are impossible to find in the soil once broken into small pieces.
I had originally moved the big mass to the back of my property but pulled it out today after taking the photo for you.
I am going to contact the place that I got it from and ask what kind it is. Like @Meesh said, you want the sterile Russian hybrid. I did look into this before I got it, so it’s not like I didn’t try to make sure I had this problem + it’s really irresponsible to bring in invasive alien species…
6 Likes
Yeah, the flowers on mine are more a shade of blue, lavender colored. My leaves however are HUGE! But it has stayed put since I got it.
5 Likes
The leaves were huge and the plant was very big when it was growing in its original spot last year. I think it just looks sad because it was unceremoniously moved into dry gravel once I saw what it was doing. The roots/tubers/rhizomes where those other ones have come up actually run horizontally, so that’s just no good.
So anyways, god dammit! Here is the info from annapolisseeds.com seeds:
They first tell that it’s a sterile Russian variety - so I must have read this:
Although we don’t know the specific strain of comfrey that we have, it’s the sterile Russian Comfrey (Symphytum x uplandicum) which only propagates through root cuttings. It won’t spread and take over the garden, but choose a location carefully. Once comfrey is in the ground, it’s there forever. Every piece of root grows easily into a new plant.
But then this is below it:
Our comfrey has lived here at the farm longer than we have. We inherited a healthy patch of comfrey growing amongst the alders alongside Kempt Brook, maybe planted decades ago by one of our herb growing predecessors at the farm. I’ve been dividing and planting that comfrey over the years, and now it grows scattered throughout the orchard and thrives in a big patch in the moist gravelly soil by our bridge.
So in other words, it spreads all over the place and these people have no idea about the sterile Russian hybrid (Russian Bocking #14) that should be the only one distributed. This is where being too hippy is no good man!
3 Likes