Irish Horse: can I interest you in a cup of comfrey tea?

This week I’ve been on the farm, weeding our wildflower area and doing much pondering on what I’m calling nature-forward equine farming.

While there is no strict definition, as I’m sure many of you know, regenerative agriculture is an umbrella-term for sustainable farming methods that focus on restoring soil fertility, increasing biodiversity, sequestering and reducing emissions, improving nutrient cycling in the soil, animal welfare and increasing water quality and availability.

I’ve been quietly working away on trying to fathom how we can be kind to soil whilst giving our horses the very best, and I’m not alone. Farming For Nature and the Nature Friendly Farming Network are both forums I’m finding incredibly useful.

I think it’s safe to say we all know planting some wildflowers, leaving areas to grow wild and planting hedges can be positive for any farm but what about the nitty gritty? Like how do you grow great grass for horses without the use of fertiliser or slurry – what are the realistic options?

Time is probably the answer, but unless you have unlimited acres to rotate your horses, nurturing the soil for good grass isn’t so easy without fertiliser of some sort.

I’ve got a plan. It’s more of an experiment at this stage really so bear with me, but I’m going to monitor its success or failure and if I end up with swathes of healthy horse meadow grazing, I’ll let you know.

The key to my experiment? Comfrey.

I already grow masses of comfrey to pick, wilt, and feed to the horses, or on occasion to use as a poultice on a leg: I’ve found it can help alongside whatever my vet prescribes.

What comfrey is best at, however, is feeding bees and insects, and, when harvested, it makes incredible ‘comfrey tea’. Comfrey tea (for the uninitiated) isn’t a thirst quencher, it’s a brilliant fertiliser. I use it in my garden with great success, so why not scale it up I’m thinking?

Dark molasses

Comfrey can be harvested a number of times in its growing period. It can be smelly once made into the fertiliser, but so is slurry, so I’m giving it a good go.

There are methods to make it less smelly but I’m plumping for the simple comfrey stem and leaf plus water; then I’ll leave it for five weeks in a barrel with a lid on. The dark molasses looking liquid is packed with potassium and other great nutrients (it’s brilliant for tomatoes by the way).

I’m harvesting nine plants to make the ‘tea’ and once diluted, one part comfrey tea to 10 parts water, I’ll leave it alone. Hessian sacks, which house the comfrey as it degrades, will hopefully keep the liquid free of too many ‘bits’.

In consultation with our expert gardener at the walled garden here, we’re designing a water cube with a pipe and holes to hopefully spread comfrey tea joy across the paddocks. Watch this space!