If you’ve seen my post about my simple plant propagation setup, you might have noticed that I have comfrey growing there.
The thing is, I can’t get enough of this plant, no matter how much I produce it. I use it as a dynamic accumulator in my food forest guilds, as fertilizer for my garden, to accelerate my composting process, as biomass for mulching, and to attract beneficial insects. It’s a versatile plant with many uses, including medicinal ones.
Luckily, propagating comfrey is pretty simple. You dig the plant’s root, cut it into individual pieces, and plant it. After some time, each root piece becomes a plant on its own. It’s that easy.
However, it’s time-sensitive, meaning you can’t do that at any time of the year.
I had to learn this the hard way.
Before I had my nursery set up, I would go to the nearby public land to get it. I never thought about timing, so I would just dig it on a sunny day once I had some free time, and then later, I would plant the individual root pieces in my food forest. It worked as a charm—it grew in my food forest.
But, guess what, that was beginner’s luck.
Encouraged by how easy it was, the next time/year, I doubled down and went to get a massive order of this nature’s finest plant. I dug and dug and filled multiple 5-gallon buckets with roots. Then, I planted them all across my food forest.
After a while, I noticed that the cuttings were sprouting very sporadically. Something was wrong…
It turns out I overlooked the ideal timing for propagating root cuttings, and was too quick to dig out roots that were still accumulating energy before they went dormant in winter.
If I hate something with passion, it’s when I waste my most precious resource—time! I spent a good four to five hours on the whole project (digging, potting, preparing, and planting) only to realize that most of the effort was in vain.
So, to prevent this type of mistake in the future, I created a plant propagation calendar that shows the timing of all the relevant plant propagation techniques. (Click on the image below to access the calendar)
I’ve extracted the information from the AHS Plant Propagation book (which I wholeheartedly recommend if you want to improve your skills in this area) and organized it according to the recommended timing.
It was an arduous task, but now that it’s done, I’m happy to share my creation with you—no strings attached.
Here’s a short video explaining what it’s all about and how to use it.
All right, I hope this gets you started on your plant propagation journey.
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Talk soon,
-William
