Controlling Thistle

[Hinotori]

Oh and I learned that old kombucha is acidic enough to kill most plants. In warm weather it gets a bit too acidic and I don't drink quite as much so there gets to be a backlog.

So I dumped some of the extra outside and it killed everything there. Do not ever pour anything like that with live culture into a septic system.

 

[SprigOfTheLivingDead]

Yep. If you add a squirt of dish detergent, like Palmolive, it'll make the vinegar stick better. What it does is dessicate the leaves so the top part of the plant dies. I've seen recipes that say to add epsom salts, but since that's a fertilizer, doesn't seem like a good idea when you're trying to kill the roots. I just go over the area about every 3-4 weeks and spray to get any new shoots coming up. This is the second year, and I am seeing a definite reduction in the couch grass. Can't let up though, or it'll come back.

This is basically my approach with cutting it at the base when I don't have the time to devote to yanking it out: tire it out & starve it from a successful photosynthetic process.

I've heard people go the vinegar route. Maybe I need to invest in a backpack sprayer and just coat the whole damn area every few weeks next year. My goal is to restore it to a prairie, but the thistle is ridiculous

Livestock are not an option, otherwise I'd just get some goats and fence in the whole prairie.

 

[Beekissed]

If you can't do livestock, then mowing it frequently is your best bet. The best pastures are those that are mowed more frequently, or so the old timers say.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Vinegar is non selective, so it would likely kill or certainly knock back ANY plants it comes in contact with. Agreed with Bee. frequent mowing. I don't know how much vinegar, and how often you could get away with it without having a negative effect on your soil pH. You would certainly need to pay attention to that. Also... could it be that your pH could be tweaked to make the prairie less hospitable to thistle?

 

[tortoise]

I have pasture infested with thistle. We brush hog just before it flowers, but that's not really enough.

In the yard, we've dug it out. My son did the work. I paid him $0.25 per intact thistle root. This year I haven't found a single thistle rosette in the lawn!! I pay him for digging out of the pasture too.

 

[SprigOfTheLivingDead]

I have pasture infested with thistle. We brush hog just before it flowers, but that's not really enough.

In the yard, we've dug it out. My son did the work. I paid him $0.25 per intact thistle root. This year I haven't found a single thistle rosette in the lawn!! I pay him for digging out of the pasture too.

That certainly supports my pulling tactic.

How old is your son? Some of those thistle are hard to pull for an adult

 

[tortoise]

That certainly supports my pulling tactic.

How old is your son? Some of those thistle are hard to pull for an adult

He is 12. I pulls the little ones out with a dandelion weeding tool. He goes for the smallest ones. LOL. spring through fall, when he mouths off to me I tell him to dig thistles, usually 200. Which takes him about an hour. Part of the pasture is 75% thistles. Mostly little ones. DH brushhogs the pasture before the can set seed, but we're not winning. It's worse every year.

 

[Britesea]

Y'all are going about it all wrong. You gotta go out there and rub your hands and smack your lips and talk about how good this will be on the dinner table. Soon as Mother Nature figures out you WANT them.... I guarantee they will all get blight and massive insect raids and shrivel up and die....

 

[tortoise]

 

[milkmansdaughter]

@Britesea , that's FUNNY!
But, that being said, IS it possible that you could harvest it?? Plants like thistle with long roots often bring up nutrients deep down in your soil, and also bust up the ground for other plants. I've been watching some videos recently that are changing my ideas about land management, and I'm wondering how you could benefit from this plant. But maybe there is a way for you take advantage of the bumper crop of thistle you seem to have? Here are a few ideas...
https://vifarms.wordpress.com/2012/...-properties-of-invasive-weeds-canada-thistle/

https://sites.google.com/a/georgetown.edu/urban-herbs/canada-thistle

http://www.preciousprairieplants.com/blog/canada-thistle