I went out to work in the garden a little, and ended up spending a lot of time digging. I have Canadian Thistles. They are clearly the scariest thing I’ve ever encountered in my garden. Not only are they a horrible, prickly weed; they are also perennial – that is, they come back from the roots after winter. And the root system – it’s scary. It runs horizontally under the ground. Like horrible fingers. I dug out as much as I could. Now the rest of the summer I will be poisoning any thistle that shows itself. Hopefully the combination of stress and poison will kill the roots.
Here is what they look like:
And here is a sample of a running root. Whenever I saw them I heard that plucky violin music they play in scary shows that sounds like THIS
Yea, but do you yet have that sticky-backed creeping vine thingy I showed you from our front yard? They’re EVERYwhere now. That gives me the jibblies, to see how fast they’re taking over. Probably alien…Where are J & K when you need them?
AAAAHHHH!!! That music is too creepy for early morning in a dark house. I need to turn a light on….
Last year at school I had a little success with pouring boiling water on weeds, though then I felt bad for any bugs that I also cooked. What I thought was most interesting was the smell – it smelled like boiled salad. Mmmmm….. boiled salad……
The last two years have been wet years here and we did mighty battle with creeping charlie. That also involved poison and generally being more of a bad-ass than the creeping charlie. If it had prickly bits, I think the battle would have turned out differently.
I chopped thistles in pastures for farmers when I was in high school. I could come out and take care of those. I just need a razor sharp shovel.
Doesn’t look like they are that big yet. Maybe a razor sharp spoon?