"Two women who posted multiple times in this thread about the risks of comfrey are Judy B and daisyduckworth. How exactly do they fit into your conception of "a ruthless male quest for domination"? :)" They posted information without being insulting. It is the "insulting" part, and the demand that one poster, and one poster only, answer you which brings threads to a dead stop. "Threads get "trashed" when posters can't tolerate disagreement and give in to the temptation to start flaming others. We can do without that." Absolutely. So stop doing that. ... I plan to read your links, but the fact that one of them is an article called "Quackwatch" is not very congenial, either. Where is the link to your own previous posts? What you don't seem to get is that, even if someone were a so-called "quack," that does not necessarily make them an evil person or someone not worthy of courtesy. I wish you would take seriously my input to you in the other thread. It was well meant, and I doubt that in your personal life anyone will ever tell you those things. People as argumentative as you appear to be tend not to get much feedback; other people just don't bother. The skills I mentioned are real skills that can be taught, and most people of wealth use them regularly. They are part of the skills set that is necessary to move up in life for most people, despite the present-day emphasis on getting ahead by being obnoxious. Maybe under the system of humors you would be classified as "choloric", but you would have to ask Charles what herbs were applicable for the condition. This is not an issue of agreement or disagreement with your individual herbal points. You have a full right to make your points, as does EVERYONE on here, without harassment or insult. What you don't seem to appreciate is that some of the people you attack (to me, it is attacking) probably know a lot more about herbs than you do and just enjoy sharing their insights. You don't have to agree with them and you can make all the conflicting posts you want, but they don't owe you any "proofs", and they certainly do not need to be insulted. Find your own documentation for or against and simply present it, as does everyone else on here. It seems to me that there are other viewpoints in here that you simply will not tolerate. In fact, it appears to me that you want to do away with traditional, empirically based herbalism altogether. You seem to want to turn herbalism into a laboratory science which excludes all field knowledge. If you are for the medical lab approach exclusively, you really may not belong here; this is a GARDENING website. Although information on remedies, etc. is shared, it is NOT a "medical website", it is a cultural one in which arcane knowledge regarding ancient and modern herbal practices are shared by, mostly, gardeners. There is a whole area of gardening devoted to herbal gardening, in part an effort to save cultural knowledge that has been swept aside by modern practices. People should not really be coming to this site in search of "cures" for specific conditions, either--they should be going either to medical sites or the sites of accomplished herbalists, or to their own physicians. What should be happening on here is information regarding how to grow medicinal herbs, and what those herbs may be capable of. To me, the focus should be on the individual herbs, not medical conditions. I am uncomfortable posting information regarding growing medicinal herbs on the culinary herbs forum. Although I understand to a certain extent the reasons for calling medicinal herbs food, because they really are--in a foraging society, everyone would have tried some of them--I feel it is unfortunate that the modern scientific establishment has such a monopoly that it is necessary to do so to protect a whole body of traditional knowledge from ruthless extermination. You acknowledge that you are here because you want to drive herbalism forward under the medical model, and you have indicated by your actions that you will tolerate nothing else. You will not tolerate any other point of view, because YOU want to push forth YOUR OWN viewpoint of herbalism. In actuality, you are "selling" something, too--the field that you want to work in, as you want to work in it. If you eliminate from the workplace competition others that are more skilled than you in herbology itself, rather than lab science, you have made a rather large, selfish win--just like those who make money from selling herbs. There is no moral superiority in service to a great cause there; therefore, there is no excuse for a lack of courtesy. These issues are so central to where herbalism is in modern times that I do not feel that addressing them constitutes "flaming". In fact, I doubt that few people who exist just to "flame" others are on this site. Most people here are gardeners who like to share gardening information--which happens to include knowledge about herbal gardens and various cultural practices around those. It's really irrelevent to the historian if the herbs worked for what they were grown for, or not--the interest is historical, and many of us are interested in that information. Those who wish to have gardens of herbs that can be safely used to assist in various conditions may be more interested in the modern scientific viewpoint regarding specific herbs, but not all of us really care, since we would be unlikely to actually use many of the herbs we grow in any case. I grow some herbs because I know that bees like their nectar, and am hoping that may give the bee population a little boost, for example. Not everything about herb gardens is just about humans. I greatly enjoy the insect activity they encourage, for example. When I was doing research on the internet to find out more about the elderberry, I was delighted to find a monograph detailing all of the insect species attracted by the various forms.

If you don't disturb the plant, for instance by tilling, not even a little, it should stay put. We have friends who tilled a bit of the comfrey growing at the edge of their garden and had a major invasion. They stopped it by covering for 2-3 years with black tarp. Planting it in rich clay loam may have been part of the problem. Seeing what happened there we planted ours in sod, in rather poor soil. Comfrey's deep roots draw minerals into the leaves, making them a good fertilizer. This website suggests picking the early leaves to line potato planting trenches with - I'm planning to try it this year. The site makes a few claims that seem over the top but comfrey has a long proven track record. Here is a link that might be useful: comfrey uses

madness123--the comfrey I have has stayed in a nice sized clump. I don't think I have ever let it go to seed. i do let it flower as the flowers are very pretty and they attract lots of bees, but I usually chop it right down as the flowers fade, and add it to the compost pile. It grows right back as if nothing ever happened. I have the biggest clump growing beside the compost pile so it is convenient to add it. It is supposed to be a good thing to get your compost pile working well and speed up the decomposing. I got my plant as just comfrey so I don't think it is either 4 or 14 (I didn't even know about other kinds )

Comfrey does not need to go to seed in order to spread - it spreads very rapidly by sending up new plants from the roots .. or any severed portion of the root! These roots spread incredibly fast, far and deep. I would strongly recommend planting it as you would mint - in a pot sunk in the ground.