Pretty Comfrey

Five years ago a friend asked me if I wanted a clump of comfrey for my garden. I asked her what comfrey was used for. She answered, "Oh this and that. It comes in pretty handy in most circumstances." I took the comfrey, not quite knowing what to do with it. Now I can't ever see being without it, talk about a plant that can multi-task!

Way back when, comfrey was commonly known as 'knitbone' and 'woundwort' because of its healing properties when it came to broken bones, sprains and bruises. I always have a jar of dried comfrey leaves to steep in boiled water for stubbed toes, bumped knees and so forth. For broken bones, I much prefer casts and slings but when my daughter broke her collar bone and a cast couldn't be used, a comfrey poultice came in pretty handy after a bath and before she put her sling on.

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The kind of comfrey I have is commonly known as Canadian Comfrey and grows quite high, I can cut it down three times a year easy. Which is good because I use a lot of it. A couple of times through the summer I will take a big black garbage can and fill it with cut comfrey, add water, put the lid on tight and let it sit for three weeks. Occasionally, I will give it a stir with a rake or pitchfork just to keep everything aerated. After three weeks, that garbage can just reeks! I have to steady myself and steel my nerves before opening the lid, it's one of the worst smells I have ever encountered. But it's a great liquid fertilizer for my garden, it does wonders for my corn and tomatoes. I take a shower afterwards and leave my rubber boots outside until they stop smelling, that takes about a week. The garden will smell funny a few days too but the plants just love their comfrey tea.

Comfrey also comes in handy for the rabbits. Usually my rabbits will ignore comfrey if I put it in with their greens. But if a bunny is not feeling well, she will eat comfrey if her ailment is a digestive issue. So comfrey helps me diagnose the problem and helps in tummy troubles.

Comfrey is a pretty plant. Mine will grow over five feet high and it sprouts new shoots easily, making it a breeze to propagate. I now have it growing in three different spots and when it gets too big, I cut it down and pop it in the compost box to add a little boost in nutrients. I gave a clump to a neighbour to grow since he was having trouble with an old shoulder injury. He has since started using it as a decorative plant. He says it makes a nice backdrop to his garden. I'm beginning to line one part of our old wooden fence with it and it does look very pretty with it's broad green leaves and delicate purple flowers. The flowers, pale and raindrop shaped, show up in little shy groups at the top of the plants. The dark green leaves brings out the weathered grey in the fence and adds a touch of strength to the washed out color.

Some people do use comfrey internally, usually in a tea or even salads. But a few years ago, a couple of studies came out saying when consistently fed to rats comfrey caused liver problems including cancer. Well hell, anything seems to cause cancer in rats if fed in high enough quantities as far as I can tell. Don't feed it to rats! All joking aside, I just use comfrey externally and avoid the whole issue. Comfrey certainly helps around here in many different ways. I guess I could say it makes life a little more 'comfreytable'.

Drying Stuff or How My Dining Room Became a Jungle

When I was young, I remember house hunting with my parents. Mom (Eileen) always commented on the dining room. A house that had a dining room always moved to the top of the 'potential' list. I got the impression that a dining room added class, prestige and a touch of style. Not in my house, it doesn't, not anymore anyhow. Functionality has overtaken showmanship.

This is a picture of the door of my dining room that leads into the kitchen. Right now you can actually see it. In about two weeks, you won't be able to. I doubt very much if you'd be able to look out the window or the french doors. The table, a beautiful mahogany oval that can sit eight very comfortably will be covered with seeds and pods drying for next Spring's planting. (That's kind of depressing, thinking about next Spring already, so let's not.) In fact, getting through the dining room is going to be an exercise in strategic movement as we try to avoid drying racks and stray branches reaching out into doorways. When people tell you things stop growing once you pick them, don't believe them. I swear things that are hanging above doorways get longer and the next thing you know, they grab you by the hair. Or it could be I do a lousy job tying them up and the knots get loose and the string drops a bit.

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The dining room became my makeshift drying room because it's the only room the works. You need a dry, no direct sunlight room to dry stuff and the dining room is the only room that fits the bill. The only window is north facing and the french doors have the porch roof prevent direct sunlight. I suppose the living room would work but I don't even want to imagine the howls of protest if anything should come between the kids and the TV screen. The big kitchen has too much traffic and the little kitchen is too small. The basement is too damp. That leaves the dining room.

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We're used to it, and don't even give it a second thought. The kids get a little bummed because if Mom has turned the dining room into an aromatic pit they may or may not be able to navigate it means that school must be getting close at hand. Visitors still do a double take when they see raspberry canes heaped on my old greenhouse frame, beans, nasturtiums and cornstalks drying from string, herbs here, there and everywhere. Sometimes I think I should have the Guns and Roses song "Welcome to the Jungle" playing when people come over, just to prepare them a little.

A Rare Sight

It's been a rainy summer, for the most part. Certainly there's been enough sunshine for my gardens to flourish but I need to keep a weather eye out for the dreaded blight that can hit tomatoes and potatoes in damp weather. While there has been reports of blight outbreaks on the island, especially with potatoes, everything here at the DaM farm is doing OK.

Because of all the extra rain, the dam has been flowing constantly. Usually it has dried up by this time and will only offer a trickle after a rain. But this year the waters constantly splash merrily over the dull grey embankment and the dour dam wears diamonds in the sun. The river is higher than usual and more inviting to geese that usually shun my part of the woods except to honk overhead announcing their arrival or departure, depending on the season.

Last week, I discovered a Mama Goose and her five youngsters enjoying an early morning paddle-about on the river from my computer room window. I went out to get a couple of pictures. My camera is not very good and the geese were shy. No matter, it was a rare event and while the pictures are fuzzy and out of focus, the memory of standing in the rain watching the birds is not.

Mid-Summer Garden

I like mid-summer in the garden. Everything that is going to grow is established and thriving, anything that isn't going to do well hasn't and is now reposing in the compost pile waiting to be re-incarnated in the garden next season. Who knows, may-be the ailing basil plant this year will help the next crop of tomatoes thrive.

Mid-summer gives me an inkling of what the harvest might be like, barring an unforeseen circumstance such as a tail end of a hurricane, a brutal windstorm or the end of the world. The tomatoes look good, the corn is beginning to get tassels, lots of little green pumpkins showing up between the broad green leaves and yellow flowers. This season, the inkling is good.

By mid-summer, the weeding has given way to early pickings. Oh sure, there'll always be weeding but by this time, if I've been vigilant with the weeding so far, the weeds and I will reach an understanding. They won't take over the garden and I will only pull what I see, the weeds under the zucs and intertwined with the snow peas are safe. So going into the garden now has a new purpose, instead of coming out with a bucketful of weeds, I come out with lettuce, little zucchini, dill, basil, chard and assorted 'thinnings' for the rabbits. It's a good deal.

Mid-summer is the time I put the tomato 'teepees' up. The system worked well last year so I'm continuing the tradition. But I dunno about the effect, it seems different this year. Last year it just looked sweetly quaint and old-fashioned, this year it has a eerie feel to it. Actually it reminds me of an old horror movie called 'The Blair Witch Project'. Not exactly the look I want for my garden. May-be it's the scarecrow adding a bit of the uncanny especially since it looks like it has a face. The head is just an old soccer ball Angel destroyed, I figured it could hold up a hat. Yet in the pictures, the dents, gouges and rips in the ball kind of look like a face. I made the tepees bigger this year and that might be causing the effect. Unlike the scarecrow face, I made the tepees bigger on purpose. I'm thinking I might be able to dodge an early frost bullet or two by putting heavy plastic around the tepees when a frost warning comes in the fall. It might give the tomatoes a couple of extra days or so to ripen.

The best thing about mid-summer, It's still a long way to fall yet I'm reaping the benefits of the garden already. I have a little time to walk the shores or may-be read a bit of a book. It's a comfortable time. It's not time yet to start planning the Autumn doings, just a time to enjoy every minute Mid-summer graciously gives. Well, I made one plan for the Autumn, I'm definitely getting rid of that DaM scarecrow at the end of the season!

Freezing Raspberries

Unlike my strawberries which were a huge disappointment this year, the raspberries are wonderful. Raspberry canes just grow, produce for a couple of years and then die off but by then, they've replaced themselves twice over so there's always canes loaded with fruit. Raspberries are not a high-needs fruit. I like that.

I'm trying a different way to freeze them. I usually just pop 'em in bags and freeze. I found this method which says to freeze them on a cookie tray lined with wax paper then put them in bags for the long term. I'm hoping it will be easier to just get a scoop of berries in the dead of winter when I am longing for the long, hot berry days of summer. Heck when January rolls around, I'm even beginning to miss the mosquitoes. But back to freezing raspberries. Berries frozen in bags tend to stick together, I am hoping that if they're frozen individually they won't be so chummy with each other and will tumble merrily into my bowl reminding me of summer's carefree ways.

National Cow Day

Driving in the car today I heard the morning guys announce that today was National Cow Day. Now these two DJs are basically throw-backs to the WKRP in Cincinnati show. In fact, they were probably rejects from the show so I'm not too sure if what they were saying was actually fact or not. But according to them, today is Cow Day and they had some interesting facts about cows. Cows graze north to south or south to north, I can't remember which. Now I have seen a lot of cows here on PEI and I can't ever recall them all pointing in one direction as they ate. It's something you'd think I'd notice. But may-be not, usually when I see cows, I'm driving so I'm not paying a whole lot of attention to their compass points. Another little known fact (according to the DJs) is cows like to solve puzzles like opening a doorknob and such. Apparently, their heart rate increases as well as their brain activity. I wouldn't be surprised if that is true, animals are often a lot more than what we dumb humans realize.

So in honour of National Cow day, I am posting the closest thing the DaM Farm has to a cow. That's Dusk, at 130 lbs, he could pass as a small cow, especially with that white streak down his face, lots of cows have those. Dusk doesn't eat pointing a certain direction, he eats where the food falls. He also wouldn't solve a puzzle if his life depended on it. But Dusk can dance. If you look at the picture, you will see his hind feet are 4 - 5 inches higher than his front feet and his hips are higher than they should be, too. Well, you kinda have to squint to see that on account of the branches. Anyhow, he looks that way because he's dancing. He loves to go under the lowest branches of his favorite tree and, standing in place, jump up and down using only his hind feet. I've never known a dog to do that before. But I've never seen a cow open a door by using a doorknob either. So if one is possible, I'm sure the other is too.

The Potato Project

I've grown potatoes before but had given it up because the potato bugs had a field day and ate the plants all up. My neighbour grows potatoes and I asked him what he did about the bugs, he said he picked them off one by one. I tried that. It didn't work for me at all because A) The bugs make the most disgusting crunchy sound when picked and squashed and B) I really don't have 3 hours plus a day to be picking off bugs because as sure as the sun shines, I can pick 'em off in the morning and by lunch time a whole new crew has moved in and started another munch-in. I decided that my neighbour most likely just sent all his bugs over to my garden.

I was disappointed that I didn't have potatoes because the first year was so great. I never really considered growing potatoes; I live on Prince Edward Island and potatoes are plentiful and cheap (until lately). But I was visiting a friend and she asked me if I would like some russet potato sets for my garden. I love red potatoes! As she blithely cut sets for me, I started asking questions. How deep do I plant them? How far apart? Do I plant them skin side up or down? How high should the rows be? Should they be watered daily until I see sprouts? Do they need a lot of water or are they a little drought resistant? She handed me a paper bag full of potato cuttings and said, "Would you please stop micro-managing? Dig a trench, throw them in, cover 'em up, get on with your life." So I did and I got beautiful potatoes. That was the first and last time I ever had any success with taters. The next year the bugs found my potatoes.

I'm hoping my luck will change this year. Another friend of my told me about the tire method of growing potatoes. So I'm going to try that. The theory is great, makes a lot a sense so naturally I'm suspicious of it. If there's one thing I've learnt in my gardening adventures it's everything is fine in theory, it's the nuts and bolts of the operation that messes everything up. And I always seem to have extra nuts hanging around. The process is simple, you get an old tire fill it with earth/compost/worm castings, stick a few potatoes in it and there you go. As the stalks get high enough, you put another tire on top of the first one and fill it again until only a little bit of the stalks are showing. The theory is the stalk you covered up with earth will start sending out roots and make more potatoes. That makes sense to me. Whenever I start new indoor plants from cuttings, I take off a few bottom leaves and roots will start growing where the leaves used to be. If I leave the leaves on, roots sprout around them. Apparently you can stack the tires 4 deep, and each tire supposedly gives 25 pounds of potatoes.

So I tried it this year and after a couple of teeny tiny little errors (ya notice theory never takes into account the intelligence of the person implementing the theory?), things seem to be coming up roses, or in this case, potatoes. I bought organic red potatoes from the grocery store, cut up a couple and put 8 pieces in the tire and covered them up. I found out, 3 pieces is usually the amount planted in a tire. Ooops. Two week later, I don't have one sprout. No little leafy taters starting up at all. So my neighbour gave me a few of his extras. He said the potatoes I used were probably sprayed with something to stop them from sprouting. Ew. So I planted 4 more and sure enough, the next day the first potatoes I planted make an unexpected appearance. Methinks I planted 'em to deep. Oh well, never mind, I have them growing and they seem to be doing well. The best thing is no bugs so far. I doubt if I will get to 4 tires high because I was late in planting them but I'm interested in seeing if this actually works. I do have some extra tires waiting just in case I need them.