The war on thistles is being lost. There is one particular variety that is taking over the fields. I run the cows through. Then mow the thistles behind them. Again and again but it will not give up. I have tried all the organic remedies on small patches. It will not succumb. It sends suckers underground. This thistle hates shade so the only remedy I see is to plant trees everywhere. But I only rent this land. No trees allowed.
Do you remember when the big digger came through up on the bank and dug all the muck out of the ditch and slung it straight across the bank and on top of the wild grasses in the government land. It has all come back in thistles. Miles of it. If I used Round Up -and I don’t – even round up will not kill it. It is Round Up resistant. Soon it will flower and then all those thistle seeds will be blown by the westerly wind straight through the new wild flowers and across my fields.
Now, what the hell do I do about that. This is a rhetorical question. No need for a question mark. Or an answer. I am already battling acres of thistles.
Anyway – I am hot already – it was a brutal day in the gardens hoeing and weeding and planting and watering into the night. The humidity has arrived. Today will be even hotter. But there you are. 
My gates have dropsy. This is the fourth one this week -just falling off their hinges. Dropping to the ground. The ground is drying out and the gates are shifting. And the gates are Johns department. He is in charge of infrastructure. So now we are open plan until his next day off! That and I drained the batteries of two trucks, my car and the mower in the last two days. He was not impressed. I did nothing but try to start the vehicles. I turn them on and they are dead. It is a problem this draining of the batteries. Though I have lots of energy for a while. 
Today will be better. Today there is just me – I can do that. And I will walk everywhere. I hope you have a lovely day.
Am I in a mood? Well maybe. I cannot always be frickin’ Pollyanna.
Love celi
ps – Yesterday I was able to txt with my son who was on a plane travelling to Dubai. Can you imagine!
Weather report: Even hotter. With wind.
Monday 06/12 0% / 0 inMainly sunny. Near record high temperatures. High 96F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph.
The Kitchen's Garden 
85 responses to “The thistle war”
I doubt even Pollyanna would have been able to find something glad about thistles… not even your land. And yep, I know it… when you report yet another thing to the person in charge of infrastructure…
We’ve had castor oil plants pop up after the flood, millions of them. They’re an invasive weed here, but there’s all these seeds in the silt and mud left behind and they just keep growing. I keep pulling them out as I find them, but they’re all over the parks and road verges where there’s too many to pull…..opportunistic little beggars, like your thistles. Council will come along soon and spray everything, unfortunately. It’s harder when you have no control over the rest of the land.
I love that you said Pollyanna – brought back such strong memories of my mother! She WAS a Pollyanna! I hope you can keep trying to behead the thistles, as that is about your only hope.
I tried Round Up too (did you know it is illegal in Ontario? But for some reason, one can still buy it!) but it did not work either. Instead, a cheaper product called Total Wipe-Out, Ultra by Wilson was very effective (https://www.lowes.ca/weed-grass-control/wilson-1-l-wipeout-ultra_g2649877.html). It literally dehydrated the weeds in a very short time and it’s been over a week, and I do not see regrowth. Hope your battery issues are resolved.
You are on your own so shout and stomp and threaten to the heavens like Scarlett O’Hara ‘I’ll never have thistles on my land again’ [well, she shook her fist at poverty again or something 🙂 !]. Good for the soul ! Seriously Mrs NotPolyanna, someone above spoke of Gov or NG departments: surely you have one for organic farming which has met that problem before and can provide some definitive answers ?
They will just send some one over to spray it. The bank I cannot fix and i don’t want everything sprayed dead. We will just keep digging them out of the fields. c
I looked up the product Eva mentioned and it supposedly is ‘organic’ but methinks the cost would be prohibitive on the size you have to cover ! You sure do not need that extra work especially if there are not as many wwoofers looking for places this year . . . . damn!
the best way I found to deal with thistles , and iron weed is, I wait till they are starting to bloom, then mow them down.
they usually do not have time to send up another bloom. but if they do . chop them again
it takes a couple of years for their root to die out, but seem to be the only way that works for me.
my thistles were introduced by a neighbor feeding thistle seed to birds.
Amen. I hear you. Farming is hard. I don’t feel like being Pollyanna every day either. Coyotes are eating our goats. Squash bugs are killing our squash plants. I’m up at 5 and don’t come in till after 9. I’m drenched in sweat by the time the sun comes up. I wouldn’t trade this life for any other, but it’s not all playing with cute animals and sitting on the back porch sipping sweet tea.
I hope you find a solution to your thistle problem. They seem worse than normal here this year too, but not nearly as bad as what you’re dealing with.
Thanks for keeping it real.
J > Hi Celi. Scotland does thistles – a different variety for every season and circumstance. You will certainly get an outburst after that ditch-clearing, because it released seed preserved in the sediment. But nature can only make room for so many thistles, and not everywhere they germinate and grow will they persist – the conditions may not be favourable. so you’ll find they will reduce anyway. Hower the roots can only survive if fed by the leaves, and as long as you keep topping them you’ll weaken the roots and then the competition will do the rest. Don’t get mad – get even!
The comment section is really interesting. I had no idea . . . I always thought “thistle” had an amusing sound. I first saw one up close in mid-life. A student pointed it out, standing tall (evidently not your kind) beside a country road. I thought its flower was mysteriously appealing, like a single, staring eye. Some teacher, me . But I’m learning here. Never too late.
I call that a ‘condo’ day, as in why didn’t I buy a condo. Been without power since 7 Monday evening, half a huge tree went down behind the house just missed the pasture fence, it’s like a sauna outside and my John is fishing in Canada! Not feeling Pollyanna-ish either
Three thoughts:
1. Biological control? There seems to be any number of articles on Google. I can’t suggest one without knowing which thistle you have. Gall Flys seem to be a North American thing. I also read something about weevils in my two-minute scan.
2. Old-school graft ? Grub the bastards out with a mattock, hook them out root and all. That is what we do. It is suprising how many acres three people can cover in a few days, and your land is flat!
3. Polyanna was a goody-two-shoes, and I never finished the book.
p.s. I am also thinking that you can spin certain thistle fibres. Maybe there is a use for your crop? Whilst unlikely, it never huts to think outside the box.
And…
after I posted that, I got to thinking about the role of taproots in soil quality. If, as you have mentioned your land has been abused in the past, then the thistles and other taproots can play an important role in bringing nutrients up from deep in the ground. I am no expert in this, but there are experts like BioGro and other organic soil quality scientists. Perhaps the thistles are a necessary part of the recovery of the land. Perhaps there is a ‘right’ time to just plough them back in, e.g. just before they flower?
Worth a look.
You do not HAVE to be Pollyanna for us. I am sorry about the thistles. They are horrible little plants. I can lend you a tortoise.
Rotten stuff roundup .. but the so are thistles