After a few years of mostly vegetable gardening, I got really interested in growing medicinal herbs and plants as a way to naturally treat whatever may be ailing us. After reading and researching in many of my favorite books on herbs, I knew I needed to add comfrey to our medicinal herb garden. We found a woman in a seed trading Facebook group a few years ago who kindly offered up a couple chunks of root from her non-invasive variety. Now we have two beautiful plants that have come in really handy this past week.
Comfrey is also known as knit bone and boneset, and it’s been used as medicine for centuries. The leaves can be made into a tea to treat all sorts of conditions from acne to whooping cough, but we have recently been using the leaves as an external poultice.
Loren fell off a ladder while working on a new cabin at the end of July, and he broke a bone in his wrist. Of course there was lots of pain and swelling initially, but now, 2½ weeks after his fall, the swelling in his hand, wrist, and forearm was persistent. So we started using comfrey in a poultice by chopping the fresh leaves in a food processor, and wrapping them around his wrist. After applying this remedy for about an hour twice a day, the improvement was immediate and stunning! The swelling was greatly reduced and his mobility had significantly increased.
We are so grateful to have this amazing plant growing in our garden!
