There is one horrible weed that all gardeners absolutely hate….Thistles!
In this video, I’ll show you exactly what to do to get rid of them and to keep them in check.
Spring is the best time for weeds to get a foothold, especially for Creeping Thistle.
It's mostly known as Canada Thistle and is now one of the worst invasive weeds around the world.
It’s a perennial that can grow about five feet high with extremely sharp spines on its stem
and the edges of its leaves.
Through the summer they'll actually get harder and sharper so they can be painful if you touch them.
Thistles also have these terrible roots that are practically impossible to remove completely.
They go deep at over a foot sometimes and then they turn, sending up new shoots every few inches.
Later in the year it'll produce a lot of purple flowers. You definitely need to get rid of them to keep the rest of your garden safe as they can form about a thousand seeds per plant. Since they have a lot of fluff on them, they'll ride the wind and can blow for miles.
Like me, if you garden organically, you stay away from any chemical herbicides. You don't want to upset the natural balance by using any toxins that could hurt bees or even yourself. So before you plant your garden, you want those weeds gone!
The best method, I think, is to simply dig them out.
I've always had the best success in early to mid spring. The soil is moist and very easy to work with.
This way the roots can separate better when you remove them. If you wait until the summer, the soil will be drier and be hard...encasing the roots. The fragile roots will end up snapping into pieces.
At this time the plants are pretty small. You can handle them with little risk as those sharp spines haven't fully developed. Later in the summer and fall the weeds will have matured and will require gloves to handle.
Even when they're small you can't just pull them out of the ground by hand. The roots go too deep.
If you try, they'll just break right off. You need to work them out with a proper tool. Most tools will cuts the roots and leave a lot of pieces in the ground. All of which can reroot and grow into brand new plants.
The best one I found to use is the spading fork.
Start by pushing the fork down as deep as you can. Go around the plant and break up the soil a bit.
Do this a few times working it back and forth to start loosening the ground. This will help to pull the weeds out especially if their roots go deep. You really don't need to worry about cutting the roots with this technique. We're just poking through them. We're not slicing them up.
Do this for a bit and then you can start testing if they'll come out. Gently tug on the stem. If it's loose, slowly pull it out. The soil needs to have just enough moisture to make it crumbly.
It will then easily drop away from the roots.
The roots can travel quite a ways sometimes. And as they grow, they'll cross and twist around each other getting very tangled. Sometimes the roots will go only an inch or two before they send up a shoot. Sometimes it's much further. But you never have to worry about actually touching the roots with your bare hand. There are no spines under the ground, so they're completely safe to handle. After pulling them out, you also want to check through what you dug to see if you left any pieces behind.
Once you're done digging them out, you need to finally dispose of them. Normally, you would just throw them right onto your compost pile. But if you then cover them up while the roots are still alive,
they will definitely keep growing and spread all through the pile. And then when you want to use this
compost and put it back in your garden, pieces of live root will end up going everywhere and you'll just keeping the cycle going.
The best way is to lay them out in the sun to totally dry out and then you can mix them into your compost.
After digging them out, you want to maintain the area so you don't have to do that again. It was a lot of work! You probably left a few pieces in the ground but they're pretty weakened now. Mulch is very effective as a general weed control...usually. But it won't work for thistles that already have roots in the ground. It will not stop these stems from pushing up through it.
An easier way to keep the thistles in check is by just watching that area every week and if you see any new sprouts, simply cut them below the surface using a knife or a hoe. This will force the roots so keep trying to send up new stems. If you continue cutting them like this when they're small,
the remaining roots won't strengthen and after a while will give up.
So now I hope you know a little bit more about how thistles grow and what to do about them.
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When you garden well, you'll always eat well!
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