Recently we stopped raising horses on our farm. I talked my husband into letting one field go wild to attract wildlife and give them a safe haven. We added a brush pile, have dead trees, a stony area and a fence row. We now have fox, deer, rabbits, chipmunks, owl, squirrel and many species of butterflies and birds.
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Only sure fire way of getting rid of them is grubbing them. I agree you can top them while the thistles haven't opened as the seeds are immature and won't grow. The insect control will not eradicate, just keep the population down. The insects can't survive if they have no thistles to live on. Roundup will kill them, but if you want no chemicals, grubbing will cure the problem. The seeds can survive for years and in drought years where there is cracking or bare ground they can come back.
Grubbing Canada thistle, unless you remove every bit of root stock will not work, as Canada thistle is a perennial rhyzome spreading plant reproducing primarily from root stock..However, grubbing will work on other biannual and annual thistle.
Cut the thistle off at the ground level and immediately pour salt on the wet stub. If any are blooming cut the blooms off into a paper bag and burn the bag or you will have a million more next year.
There is supposed to be an insect you can buy that will make the thistle plants infertile, and I haven't tried that. I don't know anyone who has eradicated thistle without chemicals, but I use very very little. First I make sure that none of them go to seed. If you just chop or mow them while they have any purple showing in the buds, they will usually go ahead and mature and make seed. I try to chop them before they get that far, but those I miss, I pick off the purple flowers (get some good rose or welding gloves), bag those up, then chop the plant within a few inches of the ground and spot spray my chemical mix right on the open wound.
We have canadian thistle too. I use roundup, but not save for animals.
Try this homemade recipe I found.
Like roundup it must be sprayed on a sunny day to allow the weed killer to work its way into the roots. Good Luck!
Natural Weed Killer Formula
1 gallon White Vinegar
1 cup Table Salt
1 tablespoon Dish Detergent
Remove about 2 cups of Vinegar from the container, pour in salt and dish liquid, shake well to mix, pour the 2 cups of vinegar back into the container and shake lightly.
If the drainage eventually goes to a stèam, will it affect the fish?
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