Subject: thistles in my strawberry patch

From: [email-masked] (Sharon Crichton)
Date: 4 Apr 1995 16:58:26 GMT

My yard has a small strawberry patch in the back corner. It's overrun with
thistles. I've tried the following eradication strategies:

- pull them up (you get more of the root when the soil is wet after rain)
- spray RoundUp on the actual plant (begin careful about where to spray and
  with overspray)
- cut them down to s stubby stem and spray RoundUp on the stem
- pull them up and spray RoundUp in the hole where the plant used to be

Nothing works. It's a constant battle, one that I'm about to enjoin again
tonight. Anyone have any good suggestions? The patch also gets full sun, which
is great for a garden as well as growing thistles.

-- 
Sharon Crichton    [email-masked]   http://www.lexis-nexis.com/~sharonc

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From: [email-masked]
Date: 5 Apr 95 16:53:39 -0600

> is great for a garden as well as growing thistles.
Sharon, it would help to know what kind of thistles you have.  Do they
make a rosette (like  a dandelion) one year, then shoot up a leafy
stalk with purple flowers the second year?  (then you've got
biennial thistles like musk thistle or bull thistle). 

Are they smallish plants that smell sort of like tomatoes, and
have red berries late in the fall?  Then you've got horsenettle,
which is sometimes mis-called "thistle" around here.

Is it a smallish plant with yellow "dandelion" type flowers?  You've
got one of the sowthistles, then, most likely.

Or (shudder) is this a thick patch of thistles, usually a mixture of
knee-high or thereabouts and shorter plants, with purple thistle-type
flowes, and when you pull, you get half a colony of plants connected
by rhizomes.  In this case, you've got Canada thistle, and you've
got yourself a weed that's been declared "noxious" in about 40 states...

At any rate, glyphosate should work on any of these, but you need
to apply it to green tissue, not to cut stumps. Follow the label
directions; you may need to add a drop of "spreader sticker" to
commercial preparations in order to get the droplets actuallly down
to the green tissues of the leaf: hairs can keep it away from the 
leaf surface by simple surface tension.

Pulling will take care of the biennial thistles (esp. if you 
get them in the first year stage), the horsenettles, sowthistles, and
about anything else, but you will need to keep it up, as more germinate.
Thistle seeds can remain dormant in the soil for many years.

You could also solarize, in hopes of killing a number of seeds in the
soil before they germinate, but that would take your bed out of production
for a season.

Now: as to Canada thistle.  Glyphosate works well, but it takes several 
applications, which must be to *actively growing* plants.  So wait for
them to take off and start looking smug, then hit them.  Let them 
come back to about 6" diameter, and hit them again.  Check the label
on the bottle you're using, it may not be strong enough to nail
Canada thistle.

Alternatives for Canada thistle include hoeing religiously... like every
week for 1-2 years.  Don't miss a week during the growing season, because
those bits of chopped roots can start new plants.  The idea is to 
root up all the new ones as soon as possible.  I've also had good 
luck with hoeing them out till they start to look a little wimpy, then
apply a smothering mulch, like overlapping sheets of cardboard, and
starve the roots of photosynthate.  Do watch to make sure no thistles
creep out the edges of the mulch... they may be able to photosynthesize
enough to keep the colony growing.

Some people have had sucess with plain smothering mulches, but I've
never had any luck in established patches with just mulch.

I suppose a flame thrower would work, too, if you can cook the
roots in the soil.  Maybe thermonuclear warheads?  ;-)

If none of these sound like your thistles, let me know, and I'll
try to help you figure what you have.

Kay Klier  [email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Christine Owens)
Date: 5 Apr 1995 07:42:30 GMT

>is great for a garden as well as growing thistles.

If you leave even a tiny bit of root behind, a new thistle will
follow.  Just keep pulling.  BTW, if you use a paintbrush with the
RoundUp, you will have no problems with hitting things you
wanted to miss.

Chris Owens

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From: [email-masked]
Date: 5 Apr 95 16:53:39 -0600

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From: [email-masked] (Christine Owens)
Date: 5 Apr 1995 07:42:30 GMT

Chris Owens

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From: [email-masked]
Date: 5 Apr 95 16:53:39 -0600

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From: [email-masked] (Christine Owens)
Date: 5 Apr 1995 07:42:30 GMT

Chris Owens