I just saw your channel for the first time today and I am impressed. Your advice on weeding is spot on. I’ve been gardening for 50 years now and I found the best way to keep your garden tidy is the visit every day with a trowel and weed not only is this a very effective way to keep weeds down but you get to know your plants best when you visit them every day.
Canada thistle is the bane of my existence! It's in all my raised beds. I was gonna try sheet mulching with cardboard, so glad I watched this, I'll just keep pulling them out! LOL
As for dandelion removal, I don't do it. I don't find it to be a problem. The root brings up nutrients. The flowers bring in pollinators. The entire plant is a vegetable lol. I don't weed out lettuce, I don't weed out dandelion.
I've been digging up dandelions for ten years now because I live on the edge of a forest with all native plants, except for dandelions. I had so many that it bothered me, so I've been digging up probably a hundred a year. This year it's about fifty, with most being very small, so I think I'm close. The big ones that go very deep are the toughest because they go deeper than one shovel blade, but if I get most of it except a small deep piece of root, it won't come back. I want all native plants in my yard.
@@charliedoyle7824 understandable. I am a huge native plant buff myself, but this is not a battle I choose to fight. There are bigger battles for me. But yeah if you just keep working at it and prevent them from going to seed you can be very successful getting rid of them. Part of the reason its not a big deal for me. There are plenty of more harmful invasives near me that are also nearly impossible to get rid of lol.
I pull my dandelions and give them to my chickens, who then repay me with lots of eggs with bright orange yolks! Weeds can be useful indicators of problems with your soil, too. There is a RUclips channel hosted by a guy who is a orchard expert and he talks about what weeds reveal about your soil health. I am sorry but I don't remember his name.
Here's a pro tip: When you spot it, cover it with something large (cardboard, burlap, wood). That does two things, it marks the spot for you to come back in a week or two, and it drains the root much faster, as the root pumps out tons of energy growing that plant longer looking for sunlight. So when you come back in a week or two, uncover it and remove it at that point. What you've done is drastically weakened the root the same amount as if you'd manually removed 10 small emerging weeds from the same mother root.
After covering....to drain roots...can you weed wack it??? Also...was thinking if just covering whole area with Black plastic and leave in on for a few months?? I'm INFESTED with Canada Thisle WHOLE 100' x 100' Garden is COVERED in them....I've been fighting it for 4 years...I don't know what to do....HELP!!
@@JTRUTH2025 Covering with plastic is a very good idea, it's called the Stale Seed Bed method. Water it well before covering to encourage weed seeds to germinate, then pin down the plastic well or the thistle will push it up. Leave the plastic on as long as you can, up to a full year if possible. For the first year cover all soil except for your plants with either burlap bags or landscape fabric (can burn holes for your plants).
On paper this works, however if it’s growing in existing plants and hiding within perennial roots of plants you wish to keep alive, this method will not work. Unless you wish to kill all of your plants in order to kill the weed? And perhaps this is what it will take.
My lawn is green weeds. I keep it cut and trimmed and it looks fine as curb appeal. I lost the battle of years working on that grass. I gave up, embraced it, and as long as it’s cut, I’m good
I love our clover, dandelion, and violets. it's so pretty in spring we let it grow some... for the bees... and because the purple, yellow, and white are a really pretty color combination ☺️
Added bonus that your yard won't turn brown as quickly during a drought. Last year during the hottest part of the summer our yard (a mix of dandelions, violets, clover, grass, etc, etc) was still mostly green while all of the surrounding yards that had been carefully cultivated to be only grass turned brown or needed to be watered a ton.
Canada thistle is a real jerk. 😅 I've been battling gigantic thistles for years. Straight vinegar kills the original plant, but they do travel, unfortunately.
I did this last year and it works! very little to do this year. I wait until after a good rain, dig all the way around it with a shovel to loosen the root and pull it out ☺️
Pulling the weeds won't stop the wind from blowing in more weed seeds. It never ends. Weeds will always need to be pulled. I refuse to use chemicals to kill weeds.
The thing about vinegar is you have to use garden grade, the regular grocery grade won't be strong enough. It also only works when it's hot out, like 90 degrees plus. It dessicates the plants by dissolving their protective wax coating and causes them to dry out and die basically. This time of year in Michigan it won't work as well.
Like he said, though, you're only killing the top plant. The root goes deep and wide. I've used the higher percent vinegar and yes, it kills the top just fine. But it sprouts up 3 feet away in a few days.
Bindweed is the bane of my gardening existence and I'm pretty sure it's also communal. Good to know there is a way to get rid of it. I just have to not do what I did last year and give up on it! I'm seeing the effects of that now 😅
My issue too. His suggestion has helped me, but I didn’t realize a daily check is needed… I Was doing it once a week. Easy in the flower bed, hard in the It’s hard to see in the thick lawn though.
This is how I finally got my 25 year bindweed problem under control. I had heard that you will only make bindweed stronger if you pull it out so I spent years trying every other method. None of it worked, so I gave up and started pulling it out as soon as it would emerge. Did this every day. Took me two years to get rid of it but it worked! And like you said, I enjoy my garden so much more now.
Last July I started cutting them off at the soil level every week before cutting the lawn. By end Sept, their production had reduced about 80%. Maybe I love a challenge because I'm looking forward to my war on this thistle this summer 😂
I also pull, but use a garden fork. When lifting, I give the fork a shake to loosen the dirt and then lift out the roots. Need to do this gently as the roots snap easily and you don't want to leave any fragments.
I find that dry ground makes it easier to break roots, so I do most of my weeding after rain n the ground is nice n soft n they pop up so much easier n roots are intact.
Took me three years to rid my backyard of Goat Heads/puncture vine (in New Mexico). The seeds can be dormant for years and wait for a bit of rain or moisture. Physical removal was necessary.
I physically removed goats head from far east edge of east neighbors median for 2yrs to keep it from travelling 2 my yard. Goats head can go thru thin soled shoes. Oww!
Several years ago, we got two dump truck loads of soil, having each load deposited in a different location. While we worked through one pile, the other was covered with a white tarp. When we started working on the second pile and uncovered it, we found thistles had made their way through the soil - over 4' deep at the highest - and were thriving under the tarp. As we dig through the pile to use the soil, we uncover the roots. They are ridiculously fragile, easily breaking apart into smaller pieces. We have to sift the soil before we can use it, but I'm sure root fragments are still getting through the quarter inch mesh on the sifter!
Same in Washington lol it's not too bad in my garden at my house but I have some space at my moms house too and it is everywhere I'm putting squash in there this year though so as long as I get the squash established before it goes crazy it can probably handle it
I just started feeding the birds in the fall and never considered that I was adding weeds to the flower bed. This is going to be a mess in a couple weeks. Thank you for letting me know to switch to sunflower seeds only for the flower bed
I get the Canadian Thistles and the Bindweed. My experience was that daily physical removal was best, so I'm glad to get confirmation of that! since I was busy last summer with classes, I failed in this, and it was amazing how the weeds in the garden took off! This summer will be catch-up time!
I don't have lots of yard waste to make compost, so I do use things like thistle by making compost tea with it. When they're really well rotted in the tea, they then go in the compost without a problem. I just stick it all in a large black trach can, cover with water, put on the cover and it cooks in the sun. The smell sucks when you open it, but diluted, it is good fertilizer!
Interesting. Isn't it actually from Russia to Canada and from there to the lower 48? In my area, puncture vine is pervasive. Use a hoe, scrape it into a pile and bag it as soon as it's identifiable.
I am glad to get this information. I was so diligent about weeding at the start of last summer and then got lazy. I will try and keep up on it better this year!
I plant dandolions purslane in my garden. Both are Great ground cover. Helps keep the soil from drying out in out hot climate. dandolions bring polinators. Are easy to grow .. And leaves are a great salad addition. Make a tea out of the roots. Purslane also has pretty different color flowers that bring polinators leaves can be eaten in a salads or cooked. Most people consider them weeds. I love them. Fir the easy growth drought tollarent and ground cover in addition to the nutrition.
I agree that pulling is the way to go, i was helping a friend out and she wanted a "weed-free" garden and i told her the only way to do that was to pick the weeds out by hand because even laying barriers down won't stop the wind from blowing new weed seeds on top. She was not happy and decided gardening was not for her. I love getting my hards dirty
I put on my Bose headphones and listen to podcasts (through my phone) while I weed or do garden chores. It really helps when doing the more unpleasant chores like weeding.
Just had a house built and sod put down. The first year was fine, but going on the second year our lawn was infested with Thistle. Use vinegar then dug them all up. Got about 90 percent, but still found a few stragglers. I just wanted to say that I liked how informative you are about this weed and all other subjects you have. Knowing now that I need to get the entire root system out will make me more alert to the possibility of them coming back. Love your channel. New member hocked on your channel. Thank you for sharing such great information with us.
For thistle, I use Lontrel. Although a formal herbicide and not organic....but only kills a few types of plants, so it really doesnt hurt many veggies if you had to use in the garden. But I only put 1 drop on each "plant", and let it sit until it dies away and goes into the root. Youll never have thistle again. The way I got it in my garden, as we have a friend that has horses and I thought using horse manure was a good thing, but horse only have 1 stomach (unlike cow/goats) so a lot of the seeds that they eat, dont get digested, and planted in your garden. my 4 beds were 80% thistle....thats why I had to use Lontrel. Didnt kill/bother the asparagus or strawberries
Most of the plants that people consider "weeds" are actually edible and highly nutritional. Canada thistle is one of these. I grow most of these "Weeds" on purpose. They are actually a big part of my herbal garden.
I was going thru the comments looking for this kind of statement. Wild edibles. It's a good idea to get to know them and may be important to be able to identify them in case of hard times. We have stinging nettles, Virginia creeper, and creeping Charlie that invade every year. I allow the stinging nettle at the back slope behind my fenced portion of yard bcs it is edible, and a great deterrent for people cutting thru my property from the apartments behind us. If it comes under the fence I try to stop it. The creeping Charlie invades the grass, but I do fight it in the garden plots. The Virginia creeper has been the worst issue of all, its all toxic and I've managed to kill it back these last few years, it also grew on the slope behind the fence and was coming up past all my attempts to weed block. I went gang busters on it a few seasons ago, and it has been easier to deal with since. And i forgot to mention the dandelion and clover all over the rest of the grass.... great wild edibles... The definition of a weed is any plant you don't want in a particular location.
Thistle is mildly toxic to humans snd livestock. The medicinal uses of the toxin(applied in low enough doses to be safe) are not worth the tradeoffs and there are many superior options that do not share the same downsides as cultivating Thistle.
I had a bad infestation of canada thistle in my yard. Multiple spots that i found mature plants growing. My strategy was with the large plants to glove up and pull them out manually and trying to get as much of the root out with it as possible. Then i covered it with fresh grass clippings to stop it from growing back in that spot. Turns out matted down grass clippings works pretty well to choke out weeds. The smaller ones i burned out once a week with a propane torch. weed seeds cant germinate if they are charcoal. By the end of that summer most of the spots had been successfully killed off. Best tools i have purchased for weed control has been a weed dragon (a propane fuel torch on a long stick) and a belt torch from the hardware store. belt torch has a pull trigger on/off so you don't have to waste fuel on small precision weeding between plants and the weed dragon is great for clearing larger areas like in paths and between rows in the garden. Bunus: fire is organic.
Here’s my take on a major Canadian Thistle problem we have: the mother root is about 6 ft down. Aside from digging down and getting that being diligent is key. I don’t see much difference in using garden strength vinegar (20%) vs pulling except pulling will increase the odds of root fragments. The key is preventing photosynthesis. You are correct that when you pull thistle it energizes the remaining root to proliferate. The way I see it is if you spray the vinegar and kill the tops it will stop the photosynthesis and eventually the mother root will give up. Unfortunately this may take several years. Diligence is key.
Composting weeds is fine. Especially if you dry them out before adding to a pile. I'm not talking about a macho 30day pile but a long term pile you flip through the season every 1-2 weeks. Things will sprout, yes. When you flip the pile you disrupt and smother those sprouts. By the time its broken down to a soil-like state over like 6 months.. its fine. My compost is 90% blackberry vines. I've yet to have one root in my garden. The one thing I've had trouble with is quackgrass. And I have an in-ground garden without an ability to buffer-mulch. Clover creeps in too and can be a nuisance but its easy to cut back and its a great cover over winter. Dandelions are fine. As long as they aren't directly competing with a veggie I don't care.
I acquired one bindweed plant from a neighbor's donation to my day lily garden. It has taken TEN years of persistent snipping/removal a dozen times every summer to get rid of it, and even now I check the area to see if it has returned. It's the most tenacious weed I've ever encountered, but my persistence has finally paid off. I think.....
If you have a larger patch of Canada thistle I have had luck letting it grow just until it starts to flower. Do NOT let it go to seed. Once the thistle is getting close to flowering watch the weather forecast. You will have best luck if you have more than two really hot sunny days in a row. Cut it off around noon with a weed wacker about 4 inches above the soil. This will stress it out with the heat. The next day water the hollow stems of the thistle thoroughly. The water will go down and start to rot the stem. When the thistle is flowering it is putting a lot of energy into reproducing. This method has worked successfully on a patch of thistle for me. May or may not work if there are only 2 or 3 plants. I’ve had less success with single plants. Edit-after cutting the plants gather them up and take them away. If you leave them on the ground even cut off the seeds may continue to develop.
I think it's less successful on fewer plants because rot sets in more easily in dense groupings of plants where there is less air flow. This is great advice that works on many types of herbaceous plants, you can increase the chances of rot setting in by watering with nitrogen or microbe rich solutions like compost teas, coffee, or even urine. It could be taken a step further by covering with plastic. The wetter you keep the soil, the more easily root or crown rot will set in, so frequent overwatering can sometimes work. I don't think this technique works well with many plants that have deep taproots, for instance, yellow dock. Canada thistle is a tough perennial that can easily regenerate from it's roots, and I prefer to dig it up or at the very least pull out what I can as frequently as possible, there's no faster way to remove a weed from sight anyways.
@@Xzenoph It does sound counterintuitive, but if you ever noticed an area in someone's yard where their dog always goes, it can become a small patch of desert because the "watering" is killing the plants off.
When I moved to this house eight years ago, the front yard was a bit of grass, with a bunch of dirt (leftover as part of a construction project,) and a BUNCH of dandelions. There were so many, that I was counting them per square foot rather than how many in the yard. The problem with dandelions is not the cute little flowers, it's mainly that if left alone the plant gets bigger and wider, so it can shade out competitors. The first year I tried just plucking the flowers at the end of each day. (I let the bees munch on them during the day.) That helped, but in the second year I started digging out the dandelions as deep as I could. That helped a lot, and where the second year I was spending 1-2 hours per day digging them up, on my hands and knees (not easy over 60, BTW,) the third year it was only 40-80 minutes every couple of days, (or better 20-40 minutes every day.) Every year since, they have been getting fewer and fewer. This year, I have one or two I need to deal with every day, and most of them are fairly small, compared to what I used to see. So, yes, it's a pain to remove this stuff by hand, vs a chemical concoction. But, it works.
Dandelions are a great helper to loosen hard ground. Their long tap root brings up nutrients and makes the ground better for planting. If you leave them alone a few years (LoL) they will actually go away once their job is done.
Hey Luke, lovin' the channel from Kansas City! Quick note - when you put your weeds at the curb, that likely means they're just ending up in the city's supply of compost. Also, ending up your neighbors' compost and gardens if your city has a free or low-cost compost and mulch program for residents.
In areas I don’t want dandelions (my front lawn) I walk around and dead head the flowers. Easy & good exercise. After 2 years in my current home, this year I’ve had 2 flowers to dead head so far. Looking at my front lawn now, zero in sight. For the other undesirable plants, among the flower beds, I’m learning early & frequent intervention by pulling them up as youngsters is best. For the grape arbors, chickens and milky spore are winning the battle against the Japanese beetles. A happy accident is as the chickens have scratched under the grapes looking for bugs, the area is being naturalized by spreading purple viola. I love violas.
I have a big Canadian thistle in my yard. It’s good to know I’m not wasting my time pulling them out. Downside is they are in my neighbor’s yard and they are doing anything about them, so I’ll probably never be rid of them.
I don't have a garden where I live now but I'm moving to a new place with the room and a huge green house so I'm watching your channel to brush up for next spring, thanks for the content.
Corn GLUTEN Meal (CGM) is an herbicide, advertised as an herbicide, and actually has an NPK rating on the package i.e. 9-0-0 or 10-0-2. It absolutely it NOT the same thing as corn meal or grits at the grocery store.
I get creeping charlie. I use a propane torch but I am tempted to use triclopyr. I used it on my lawn with good results. I time it in the fall so it has time to break down by planting time.
Yeah, I was wondering about that. I just googled corn, and it is gluten free. The name is apparently a misnomer. It does come from corn and has proteins with some similarity to gluten, but not actual gluten.
I have a warm compost where any seeds or roots die from the heat. I think of weeds as more material. I also use weeds in teas to use as fertilizer. All good.
I have been struggling with Canada thistle for 5 years! I have been ruthlessly pulling it for 3 years, including digging up the entire root system to the best of my ability last spring. VERY frustrating. It has even sprouted up into my patio pavers, meaning I can't access those roots. I hope this battle starts to turn in my favor soon.
To kill your weeds that you pulled out of the ground, break them up into pieces and leave them out in the sun until they are totally shriveled up. I do this with dandelion plants that I dig up. I then put the material in my waste compost pile that is clay soil with organic material that I am disposing. If anything springs up there, I'll notice it and easily remove it again, but so far nothing bad has popped up.
I previously had Virginia copperleaves, clovers, dandelions, and wandering jews in my garden when I started over earlier this year. Plucking them out and uprooting clover bulbs was the best strategy for me. The wandering jews also tried to take over another bed where I have my corn and other plants.
Say what you will... but Fire is working! I have vinica and rhizome lateral grasses. I'm trying not to alow the photosynthetic process by destroying the surface leaves with fire and simultaneously not turning up the seed bank. It's working pretty well!
I'm so glad that you came through the procedure, OK. Hopefully, the results will be positive, and you'll get some answers that will help you. Love ya lots!
I tried using those black fabric cloth that you can buy at Home Depot in the garden section, but it's complete useless. Don't waste your money on that. The weeds grow right through them.
My entire yard is full of dandelion. I’m feeding the bees! When the lawns get cut, they grow right back and flower again. If you love your bees….let them have this! If you remove their first food source, the bees will have to wait for other flowers to start pollinating.
Campanula creeping bellflower is my nemesis. Tried black plastic for a year to no avail. It's still going in my ground cover in the shade and pulling to control but it's not gone.
I do hose weeding with crab grass. I have very sandy soil. Sometimes the grass is 6-8 inches deep (or more) and using water to liquify the soil really works. I look like a child playing in the mud when I’m done but it does work.
Pro tip. or actually amateur tip. Don't throw those weeds out. Don't compost them. Throw them in a 5 gallon bucket with some water. let them sit in there for a week or so and decompose. Then you have yourself some liquid fertilizer you didn't have to pay for.
It's a pervasive myth that the tea you are making will fertilize your plants. The best way to to help your soil and unlock nutrients for your plants is finished compost. I used to think the compost tea was the way to go, but learned it's a waste of time.
@@gigiartstudiowithartistvir3919 I would love to hear an explanation as to how it does not help, because it certainly does. Plant matter decomposes, those nutrients go back into the ground period. Whether it is finished compost, or chop and drop. It breaks down at different rates, but it all goes back into the soil. Making compost tea with invasive plants creates an anaerobic environment which will kill the roots and allows you to dump that plant matter back into the ground or into compost. If you compost without doing that, those roots are just going to grow and spread.
@@andicarlson5870 Not sure what there is to risk honestly. If its been soaking in an anaerobic environment and sitting out in the sun there is no chance its going to grow lol. If you have ever done this sort of thing, you probably wouldn't be worried about it either.
What that person described is not compost tea. Compost tea is heavily aerated and is made from finished compost and often soil from under healthy perennial. A balance of sugars (generally unsulfured blackstrap molasses) and fats/proteins fish emulsion encourages both fungal and bacterial life. Basically, if you catch a lot of plant diseases at the start and whip up a batch (24hrs) you can generally obliterate things like tomato blight (the good bacteria and fungi outcompete the pathogen) and discourage some pests (applied foliarly). I fertilize with compost, but I back it up with compost teas@gigiartstudiowithartistvir3919
My problem here in MN is Nettle. I’ve been manually pulling them when I can. There seems to be way less of them. But they still are coming up here and there. You motivated me to keep going. Thx.
Wow! I learned so much today! Great video. So glad I recently found your channel and subscribed. I use small animal bedding as mulch. No weeds and no jumping worms!
East Texas Piney Woods here. I get dewberry and greenbriar vines. Ouchies! They are impossible to get rid of, so I just cut them back to the ground, occasionally digging some of the roots. It's a constant battle! Weeding while going to the garden is a habit well worth developing, and it's a little bit of good exercise.
A good soaking rain, leather gloves, pull them out roots and all, if the root broke off I sprayed Round-up in the hole, eventually babies popped up and I gently removed them...Leather Gloves!
We did physical removal for the last 3 years of this darned Canada thistle. Tried all the other options mentioned, also. Finally, I decided to cover everything in a very thick, good quality landscape fabric. I discovered when pulling them out manually a couple of years ago that I’m very allergic to it, so this was the best option for us. Hopefully this will solve our problem!
The constant removal method is what is finally working for me with dollar weed here in the South. Even just pulling emerging leaves where I can't pull the underground vine is working.
Bindweed is my garden "invader". And cutting it off at the root works if you are vigilant. 95% anyway. The saying I love; Bindweed - you may never eradicate it, but you can show it who is boss. Thanks for the video.
Bindweed is my bane. I did some cardboard sheet mulching to kind of "start over" because previous homeowner let it get out of control and no amount of weeding would help. But it also grows via roots so I know it will come back but hopefully now that I have the cardboard and mulch over it, it will be slow to return and I can stay on top of it.
@@billinburlington5507 I did cardboard, then dirt then wood mulch so it was a pretty thick layer to smother those weeds. I've done it before with success. Great big reduction in weeds
Bindweed is the same as thistle. If it finds a gap in the cardboard it will sprout up between it. The best way that I have found to get rid of these types of weeds is to dig them up with a digging fork. I also try to trace the root as far as I can and dig up all of the root that I can find. This is very labor intensive, but I have tried everything else, and digging them up repeatedly is the only way that works. I have been gardening for over 50 years and have moved several times. Only to have to start over again battling these invasive weeds.
Yep, I never had Canada thistle until I had a large load of wood chips dumped and it took me awhile to get them moved and distributed. By then, the original area was full of thistles and I've been battling it for 5+ years now. Tried the vinegar and even tried black plastic - they just spread! Have been working on your method of continued digging but hard to get out there every day.
I have been battling Dock for 4 years and I can't get rid of it. I've heard you can eat it, but I would have to eat it every meal 365 days a year and I still would have it haunting me. HELP please!!
And you want to take the roots out whole because the tips are vegetatively reproducing. You may think you've pulled out the root, but if you hear a 'snap' you're going to be seeing that plant again in a few months. Treat he same way as dandelion. Use a spade shovel and place it near the crown. Position the blade vertically and push straight down with your foot a good six inches. Use the leverage to live the soil up and ideally it will crack along the line of the root and you can pull it out whole. Otherwise break up the clump with your fingers until the whole root pulls out effortlessly. Any attempt to put pressure on the root will snap the tip and the plant will be back later in the season.
In my garden I'm dealing with pasture weeds since I'm surrounded by pasture. These are serious weeds let me tell you. Kochia, Russian sage, bindweed, and pigweed to name a few, and many drop seeds by the millions. Dandelions are no big deal around these parts. We have bindweed but it's not been that much of a problem. There is also some bermuda grass and it's relentless.
Heck Yea, this does work on bind weed. First year of very diligent pulling created the next year of very few such that by the third year they are gone. Thanks heaven it was a small space but it really was loaded.
The weed that's giving me the biggest problem right now is mugwort. It grows via thick runners, so it's impossible to pull up without disrupting my strawberries. The mugwort was there first, and has been there since before the garden, so I don't know if there's any way to get rid of it without chopping them down every day. Yes, I know mugwort is edible, but it's also quite bitter, and I haven't found a good use for it yet.
The bane of my North Carolina garden is Florida Betony! It is also a communal weed, but also makes tubers. If you leave any little part of a root or tuber, you can't get rid of it.
When I saw you with the weeding knife I had a good chuckle. I spend a lot of time walking around with a weeding knife popping weeds. Cheers from Hillsboro Oregon
I agree, Canada Thistle is best removed by physical pulling. Good gloves help! Pulling them up from the base when they’re still tiny reduces chances of getting poked in the fingers. I use them in compost tea.
I'm in S Fla. & l get these leggy weeds that have a root that looks like a carrot! I have no idea what it is, but they can take over an entire bed in one week! I spend more time weeding than anything else.
Bindweed is the bane of my existence! I can’t look through all the comments (tho I did read some)… does anyone have advice on bindweed? I try to keep up with it early in the season, but I have so much in my modest city garden…
We have Bishop's Weed here in our yard here in US zone 7B. We've had this house since the 80s, but it took over in the past decade. No idea where it came from. It's the worst weed EVER. I've spent weeks physically removing it, but every week new leaves from new communal plants emerge. It's spread 100' in a decade. It grows over 2' tall and survives winter, so it crowds out other desirable plants. The only good thing is that we've been feeding it to our chickens who don't free range. But we want to eradicate it before it takes over our entire yard. We're putting in metal raised beds this year, but have to use commercial-grade landscape fabric underneath to keep them from taking over the beds. It's also hard to eradicate because it comes up between established mature plants and, unless you dig those up, the weed network thrives in the same root system....
Have you tried putting the chickens in a chicken tractor (which is a small, mobile cage) and letting them dig up the weeds for you? Farmers used to confine pigs on a piece of land that they wanted to clear and let the pigs root out all the weeds.
@@ValSMITH-it4lg Our yard is ~ 1/8 acre and full of raised beds / fruit trees, so it's impossible to do a chicken tractor in the typical large structure. Too many obstructions in any pathway. But we did buy hardware cloth and are going to try something similar -- mobile chicken tunnels leading to areas where we want them to weed! They already cleared the 40' x 40' enclosed run they're in after only 2 weeks, so we need to do the tunnels so that that area can re-grow.
Most birds that eat thistle equally like echinacea and millet. Echinacea makes great flower beds. Millet I accidently grew from millet sprays I bought at PetCo. Sorgum is a good bird forage if you have space.
Thank You for the info on thistles. They are nasty! Laying cardboard sheets down and topping it with mulch helps cut down a TON of the weeds in our yard. But there are some weeds (thistle) that laugh at the cardboard. We get lots of free cardboard at our house and it does much better than landscape cloth. We also do not compost any weeds.
this is how i remove himalayan blackberry, its actually very easy because despite having multiple new shoots as opposed to the one main shoot like you mention, they come back weaker and weaker each time. i only have to go out for 10 minutes on the weekend to remove any new tiny shoots that emerge from the ground in the areas i know have blackberry rhizomes.
I'm in Zone 9b in So Cal and most of my weed issues are with dandelions and spotted spurge. My neighbor behind and upwind from me let's his weeds flourish so my garden is the "lucky" recipient of his weedy largesse. I just keep a Hori Hori on my belt and use as needed.
I just saw your channel for the first time today and I am impressed. Your advice on weeding is spot on. I’ve been gardening for 50 years now and I found the best way to keep your garden tidy is the visit every day with a trowel and weed not only is this a very effective way to keep weeds down but you get to know your plants best when you visit them every day.
Thank you Luke.
Air , water .soil and the farmers shadow all plants need
Glad you found us!
I love this. No bs, no click bait
Canada thistle is the bane of my existence! It's in all my raised beds. I was gonna try sheet mulching with cardboard, so glad I watched this, I'll just keep pulling them out! LOL
It won't work. I tried it. The damned things thrive in the mulch and get stronger.
bindweed is the Devil as well. Several years ago, I watched it creeping up the curbside all through town...and right into my garden.
@@StevenBishop-c9r Totally agree! Granddaddy of weeds right there. Second to NONE!
As for dandelion removal, I don't do it. I don't find it to be a problem. The root brings up nutrients. The flowers bring in pollinators. The entire plant is a vegetable lol. I don't weed out lettuce, I don't weed out dandelion.
I've been digging up dandelions for ten years now because I live on the edge of a forest with all native plants, except for dandelions. I had so many that it bothered me, so I've been digging up probably a hundred a year. This year it's about fifty, with most being very small, so I think I'm close. The big ones that go very deep are the toughest because they go deeper than one shovel blade, but if I get most of it except a small deep piece of root, it won't come back.
I want all native plants in my yard.
@@charliedoyle7824 understandable. I am a huge native plant buff myself, but this is not a battle I choose to fight. There are bigger battles for me. But yeah if you just keep working at it and prevent them from going to seed you can be very successful getting rid of them. Part of the reason its not a big deal for me. There are plenty of more harmful invasives near me that are also nearly impossible to get rid of lol.
I pull my dandelions and give them to my chickens, who then repay me with lots of eggs with bright orange yolks!
Weeds can be useful indicators of problems with your soil, too.
There is a RUclips channel hosted by a guy who is a orchard expert and he talks about what weeds reveal about your soil health.
I am sorry but I don't remember his name.
@@ValSMITH-it4lg Stefan Sobkowiak its his name :)
@@ValSMITH-it4lg That is a great use. I wish I had chickens but I don't. So, I just cut out the middle man and eat the dandelions lol.
Here's a pro tip: When you spot it, cover it with something large (cardboard, burlap, wood). That does two things, it marks the spot for you to come back in a week or two, and it drains the root much faster, as the root pumps out tons of energy growing that plant longer looking for sunlight. So when you come back in a week or two, uncover it and remove it at that point. What you've done is drastically weakened the root the same amount as if you'd manually removed 10 small emerging weeds from the same mother root.
Love it, it really make sense.
Use the plant’s strength to weaken it😎
@@Hupamaster Yup, that's why we're at the top of the food chain, lol
After covering....to drain roots...can you weed wack it??? Also...was thinking if just covering whole area with Black plastic and leave in on for a few months?? I'm INFESTED with Canada Thisle WHOLE 100' x 100' Garden is COVERED in them....I've been fighting it for 4 years...I don't know what to do....HELP!!
@@JTRUTH2025 Covering with plastic is a very good idea, it's called the Stale Seed Bed method. Water it well before covering to encourage weed seeds to germinate, then pin down the plastic well or the thistle will push it up. Leave the plastic on as long as you can, up to a full year if possible. For the first year cover all soil except for your plants with either burlap bags or landscape fabric (can burn holes for your plants).
On paper this works, however if it’s growing in existing plants and hiding within perennial roots of plants you wish to keep alive, this method will not work.
Unless you wish to kill all of your plants in order to kill the weed? And perhaps this is what it will take.
Yes, I've heard my weeds laughing at me as well.
My lawn is green weeds. I keep it cut and trimmed and it looks fine as curb appeal. I lost the battle of years working on that grass. I gave up, embraced it, and as long as it’s cut, I’m good
I love our clover, dandelion, and violets. it's so pretty in spring we let it grow some... for the bees... and because the purple, yellow, and white are a really pretty color combination ☺️
@@micheledupreystrong Very true! My weeds are pretty this time. Loads of wild violets!
My moms back yard is a mix of weeds and bermuda grass I also think it looks totally fine so long as it gets cut regularly
Added bonus that your yard won't turn brown as quickly during a drought. Last year during the hottest part of the summer our yard (a mix of dandelions, violets, clover, grass, etc, etc) was still mostly green while all of the surrounding yards that had been carefully cultivated to be only grass turned brown or needed to be watered a ton.
@@jon27d Yes! True. I didn’t think about that. 👍
The Canada Thistle basically laughed at me. I feel you on this! 🤣
Canada thistle is a real jerk. 😅
I've been battling gigantic thistles for years. Straight vinegar kills the original plant, but they do travel, unfortunately.
Painful to remove too!
My weeds taunt me by singing opera.
@@mandy3486 not with grampas weed puller! Your welcome!
They come on with my dogs all day long 😭
I did this last year and it works! very little to do this year. I wait until after a good rain, dig all the way around it with a shovel to loosen the root and pull it out ☺️
Pulling the weeds won't stop the wind from blowing in more weed seeds. It never ends. Weeds will always need to be pulled. I refuse to use chemicals to kill weeds.
Try white vinegar!.
Make the soil a place weeds don't want to grow.
The thing about vinegar is you have to use garden grade, the regular grocery grade won't be strong enough. It also only works when it's hot out, like 90 degrees plus. It dessicates the plants by dissolving their protective wax coating and causes them to dry out and die basically. This time of year in Michigan it won't work as well.
I use grocery vinegar to kill weeds in driveway cracks and it works -
@@sherriianiro747 Yep, true!
Like he said, though, you're only killing the top plant. The root goes deep and wide. I've used the higher percent vinegar and yes, it kills the top just fine. But it sprouts up 3 feet away in a few days.
Bindweed is the bane of my gardening existence and I'm pretty sure it's also communal. Good to know there is a way to get rid of it. I just have to not do what I did last year and give up on it! I'm seeing the effects of that now 😅
My issue too. His suggestion has helped me, but I didn’t realize a daily check is needed… I Was doing it once a week. Easy in the flower bed, hard in the It’s hard to see in the thick lawn though.
This is how I finally got my 25 year bindweed problem under control. I had heard that you will only make bindweed stronger if you pull it out so I spent years trying every other method. None of it worked, so I gave up and started pulling it out as soon as it would emerge. Did this every day. Took me two years to get rid of it but it worked! And like you said, I enjoy my garden so much more now.
Last July I started cutting them off at the soil level every week before cutting the lawn. By end Sept, their production had reduced about 80%. Maybe I love a challenge because I'm looking forward to my war on this thistle this summer 😂
I also pull, but use a garden fork. When lifting, I give the fork a shake to loosen the dirt and then lift out the roots. Need to do this gently as the roots snap easily and you don't want to leave any fragments.
I find that dry ground makes it easier to break roots, so I do most of my weeding after rain n the ground is nice n soft n they pop up so much easier n roots are intact.
Took me three years to rid my backyard of Goat Heads/puncture vine (in New Mexico). The seeds can be dormant for years and wait for a bit of rain or moisture. Physical removal was necessary.
I physically removed goats head from far east edge of east neighbors median for 2yrs to keep it from travelling 2 my yard. Goats head can go thru thin soled shoes. Oww!
Several years ago, we got two dump truck loads of soil, having each load deposited in a different location. While we worked through one pile, the other was covered with a white tarp. When we started working on the second pile and uncovered it, we found thistles had made their way through the soil - over 4' deep at the highest - and were thriving under the tarp. As we dig through the pile to use the soil, we uncover the roots. They are ridiculously fragile, easily breaking apart into smaller pieces. We have to sift the soil before we can use it, but I'm sure root fragments are still getting through the quarter inch mesh on the sifter!
Bermuda grass is the bane of my existence in the garden.
Yep! In Southern California Bermuda is planted in every neighborhood. We’re doomed!
Mine too, in Texas!!
Same here in AZ. Evil stuff.
Same in Washington lol it's not too bad in my garden at my house but I have some space at my moms house too and it is everywhere I'm putting squash in there this year though so as long as I get the squash established before it goes crazy it can probably handle it
I just started feeding the birds in the fall and never considered that I was adding weeds to the flower bed. This is going to be a mess in a couple weeks. Thank you for letting me know to switch to sunflower seeds only for the flower bed
I get the Canadian Thistles and the Bindweed. My experience was that daily physical removal was best, so I'm glad to get confirmation of that! since I was busy last summer with classes, I failed in this, and it was amazing how the weeds in the garden took off! This summer will be catch-up time!
I don't have lots of yard waste to make compost, so I do use things like thistle by making compost tea with it. When they're really well rotted in the tea, they then go in the compost without a problem. I just stick it all in a large black trach can, cover with water, put on the cover and it cooks in the sun. The smell sucks when you open it, but diluted, it is good fertilizer!
Nebraska here. We have bindweed, timothy grass and buttonweed. Among others.
Bindweed is my problem in Michigan too.
@@suzannebinsley5940 In western colorado, too.
Stop blaming thistles on Canada lol.🇨🇦❤️
Interesting. Isn't it actually from Russia to Canada and from there to the lower 48?
In my area, puncture vine is pervasive. Use a hoe, scrape it into a pile and bag it as soon as it's identifiable.
@@mrcryptozoic817 yes I love that! Let’s call it the Russia thistle! 🤪
It actually originated from Europe... signed Canadians 😂
O Canada. Last year at my house it was your smoke, this year your thistle!
🇺🇸💙🇨🇦
@@peggyh4805 sorry! Lol 🇨🇦❤️
I am glad to get this information. I was so diligent about weeding at the start of last summer and then got lazy. I will try and keep up on it better this year!
I plant dandolions purslane in my garden. Both are Great ground cover. Helps keep the soil from drying out in out hot climate.
dandolions bring polinators. Are easy to grow .. And leaves are a great salad addition. Make a tea out of the roots.
Purslane also has pretty different color flowers that bring polinators leaves can be eaten in a salads or cooked. Most people consider them weeds. I love them. Fir the easy growth drought tollarent and ground cover in addition to the nutrition.
I agree that pulling is the way to go, i was helping a friend out and she wanted a "weed-free" garden and i told her the only way to do that was to pick the weeds out by hand because even laying barriers down won't stop the wind from blowing new weed seeds on top. She was not happy and decided gardening was not for her. I love getting my hards dirty
I put on my Bose headphones and listen to podcasts (through my phone) while I weed or do garden chores. It really helps when doing the more unpleasant chores like weeding.
Just had a house built and sod put down. The first year was fine, but going on the second year our lawn was infested with Thistle. Use vinegar then dug them all up. Got about 90 percent, but still found a few stragglers. I just wanted to say that I liked how informative you are about this weed and all other subjects you have. Knowing now that I need to get the entire root system out will make me more alert to the possibility of them coming back. Love your channel. New member hocked on your channel. Thank you for sharing such great information with us.
For thistle, I use Lontrel. Although a formal herbicide and not organic....but only kills a few types of plants, so it really doesnt hurt many veggies if you had to use in the garden. But I only put 1 drop on each "plant", and let it sit until it dies away and goes into the root. Youll never have thistle again.
The way I got it in my garden, as we have a friend that has horses and I thought using horse manure was a good thing, but horse only have 1 stomach (unlike cow/goats) so a lot of the seeds that they eat, dont get digested, and planted in your garden. my 4 beds were 80% thistle....thats why I had to use Lontrel. Didnt kill/bother the asparagus or strawberries
Always great videos and vibes. Alot of these weeds are very beneficial so save and dry the roots when you dig them out. Especially the dandelion 😊
Most of the plants that people consider "weeds" are actually edible and highly nutritional. Canada thistle is one of these. I grow most of these "Weeds" on purpose. They are actually a big part of my herbal garden.
I was going thru the comments looking for this kind of statement.
Wild edibles. It's a good idea to get to know them and may be important to be able to identify them in case of hard times.
We have stinging nettles, Virginia creeper, and creeping Charlie that invade every year. I allow the stinging nettle at the back slope behind my fenced portion of yard bcs it is edible, and a great deterrent for people cutting thru my property from the apartments behind us. If it comes under the fence I try to stop it.
The creeping Charlie invades the grass, but I do fight it in the garden plots.
The Virginia creeper has been the worst issue of all, its all toxic and I've managed to kill it back these last few years, it also grew on the slope behind the fence and was coming up past all my attempts to weed block. I went gang busters on it a few seasons ago, and it has been easier to deal with since.
And i forgot to mention the dandelion and clover all over the rest of the grass.... great wild edibles...
The definition of a weed is any plant you don't want in a particular location.
And medicinal as well!!
You can have mine, free, if you come and dig them yourself! 😂
Agreed on some things, but if it's an invasive spreader that's going to easily go outside the garden and crowd out natives.... :/
Thistle is mildly toxic to humans snd livestock.
The medicinal uses of the toxin(applied in low enough doses to be safe) are not worth the tradeoffs and there are many superior options that do not share the same downsides as cultivating Thistle.
I had a bad infestation of canada thistle in my yard. Multiple spots that i found mature plants growing. My strategy was with the large plants to glove up and pull them out manually and trying to get as much of the root out with it as possible. Then i covered it with fresh grass clippings to stop it from growing back in that spot. Turns out matted down grass clippings works pretty well to choke out weeds. The smaller ones i burned out once a week with a propane torch. weed seeds cant germinate if they are charcoal. By the end of that summer most of the spots had been successfully killed off. Best tools i have purchased for weed control has been a weed dragon (a propane fuel torch on a long stick) and a belt torch from the hardware store. belt torch has a pull trigger on/off so you don't have to waste fuel on small precision weeding between plants and the weed dragon is great for clearing larger areas like in paths and between rows in the garden. Bunus: fire is organic.
Here’s my take on a major Canadian Thistle problem we have: the mother root is about 6 ft down. Aside from digging down and getting that being diligent is key. I don’t see much difference in using garden strength vinegar (20%) vs pulling except pulling will increase the odds of root fragments. The key is preventing photosynthesis. You are correct that when you pull thistle it energizes the remaining root to proliferate. The way I see it is if you spray the vinegar and kill the tops it will stop the photosynthesis and eventually the mother root will give up. Unfortunately this may take several years. Diligence is key.
Composting weeds is fine. Especially if you dry them out before adding to a pile. I'm not talking about a macho 30day pile but a long term pile you flip through the season every 1-2 weeks.
Things will sprout, yes. When you flip the pile you disrupt and smother those sprouts. By the time its broken down to a soil-like state over like 6 months.. its fine.
My compost is 90% blackberry vines. I've yet to have one root in my garden.
The one thing I've had trouble with is quackgrass. And I have an in-ground garden without an ability to buffer-mulch. Clover creeps in too and can be a nuisance but its easy to cut back and its a great cover over winter. Dandelions are fine. As long as they aren't directly competing with a veggie I don't care.
I acquired one bindweed plant from a neighbor's donation to my day lily garden. It has taken TEN years of persistent snipping/removal a dozen times every summer to get rid of it, and even now I check the area to see if it has returned. It's the most tenacious weed I've ever encountered, but my persistence has finally paid off. I think.....
If you have a larger patch of Canada thistle I have had luck letting it grow just until it starts to flower. Do NOT let it go to seed. Once the thistle is getting close to flowering watch the weather forecast. You will have best luck if you have more than two really hot sunny days in a row. Cut it off around noon with a weed wacker about 4 inches above the soil. This will stress it out with the heat. The next day water the hollow stems of the thistle thoroughly. The water will go down and start to rot the stem. When the thistle is flowering it is putting a lot of energy into reproducing. This method has worked successfully on a patch of thistle for me. May or may not work if there are only 2 or 3 plants. I’ve had less success with single plants. Edit-after cutting the plants gather them up and take them away. If you leave them on the ground even cut off the seeds may continue to develop.
I think it's less successful on fewer plants because rot sets in more easily in dense groupings of plants where there is less air flow. This is great advice that works on many types of herbaceous plants, you can increase the chances of rot setting in by watering with nitrogen or microbe rich solutions like compost teas, coffee, or even urine. It could be taken a step further by covering with plastic. The wetter you keep the soil, the more easily root or crown rot will set in, so frequent overwatering can sometimes work. I don't think this technique works well with many plants that have deep taproots, for instance, yellow dock. Canada thistle is a tough perennial that can easily regenerate from it's roots, and I prefer to dig it up or at the very least pull out what I can as frequently as possible, there's no faster way to remove a weed from sight anyways.
Water the weeds? Lol.
@@Xzenoph It does sound counterintuitive, but if you ever noticed an area in someone's yard where their dog always goes, it can become a small patch of desert because the "watering" is killing the plants off.
I looked it up, Canadian thistle has edible young leaves.
When I moved to this house eight years ago, the front yard was a bit of grass, with a bunch of dirt (leftover as part of a construction project,) and a BUNCH of dandelions. There were so many, that I was counting them per square foot rather than how many in the yard. The problem with dandelions is not the cute little flowers, it's mainly that if left alone the plant gets bigger and wider, so it can shade out competitors. The first year I tried just plucking the flowers at the end of each day. (I let the bees munch on them during the day.) That helped, but in the second year I started digging out the dandelions as deep as I could. That helped a lot, and where the second year I was spending 1-2 hours per day digging them up, on my hands and knees (not easy over 60, BTW,) the third year it was only 40-80 minutes every couple of days, (or better 20-40 minutes every day.) Every year since, they have been getting fewer and fewer.
This year, I have one or two I need to deal with every day, and most of them are fairly small, compared to what I used to see.
So, yes, it's a pain to remove this stuff by hand, vs a chemical concoction. But, it works.
Dandelions are a great helper to loosen hard ground. Their long tap root brings up nutrients and makes the ground better for planting. If you leave them alone a few years (LoL) they will actually go away once their job is done.
I use a kettle of boiling water to stop them overpowering the grass.
Hey Luke, lovin' the channel from Kansas City!
Quick note - when you put your weeds at the curb, that likely means they're just ending up in the city's supply of compost. Also, ending up your neighbors' compost and gardens if your city has a free or low-cost compost and mulch program for residents.
In areas I don’t want dandelions (my front lawn) I walk around and dead head the flowers. Easy & good exercise. After 2 years in my current home, this year I’ve had 2 flowers to dead head so far. Looking at my front lawn now, zero in sight.
For the other undesirable plants, among the flower beds, I’m learning early & frequent intervention by pulling them up as youngsters is best. For the grape arbors, chickens and milky spore are winning the battle against the Japanese beetles. A happy accident is as the chickens have scratched under the grapes looking for bugs, the area is being naturalized by spreading purple viola. I love violas.
I have a big Canadian thistle in my yard. It’s good to know I’m not wasting my time pulling them out. Downside is they are in my neighbor’s yard and they are doing anything about them, so I’ll probably never be rid of them.
I don't have a garden where I live now but I'm moving to a new place with the room and a huge green house so I'm watching your channel to brush up for next spring, thanks for the content.
In the UK I know this as creeping thistle! It does just as described!
Corn GLUTEN Meal (CGM) is an herbicide, advertised as an herbicide, and actually has an NPK rating on the package i.e. 9-0-0 or 10-0-2. It absolutely it NOT the same thing as corn meal or grits at the grocery store.
furthermore, corn gluten meal has many caveats. It's very tricky to time it correctly and not an easy fix.
I get creeping charlie. I use a propane torch but I am tempted to use triclopyr. I used it on my lawn with good results. I time it in the fall so it has time to break down by planting time.
Yeah, I was wondering about that. I just googled corn, and it is gluten free. The name is apparently a misnomer. It does come from corn and has proteins with some similarity to gluten, but not actual gluten.
wow.... and I thought I was the only one !!....thise and Voles. !!!
I have a warm compost where any seeds or roots die from the heat. I think of weeds as more material. I also use weeds in teas to use as fertilizer. All good.
I have been struggling with Canada thistle for 5 years! I have been ruthlessly pulling it for 3 years, including digging up the entire root system to the best of my ability last spring. VERY frustrating. It has even sprouted up into my patio pavers, meaning I can't access those roots. I hope this battle starts to turn in my favor soon.
To kill your weeds that you pulled out of the ground, break them up into pieces and leave them out in the sun until they are totally shriveled up. I do this with dandelion plants that I dig up. I then put the material in my waste compost pile that is clay soil with organic material that I am disposing. If anything springs up there, I'll notice it and easily remove it again, but so far nothing bad has popped up.
Dandelion is not a weed, it's a beneficial herb.
I previously had Virginia copperleaves, clovers, dandelions, and wandering jews in my garden when I started over earlier this year. Plucking them out and uprooting clover bulbs was the best strategy for me. The wandering jews also tried to take over another bed where I have my corn and other plants.
Dandelion and sowthistle aren't weeds at my house, they are treasured food for my tortoises.
I love this! Thanks for sharing. Yay for your tortoises.
With a sad lack of tortoises, I eat them both myself.
You need a nail. There's a hand tool called silver nail? You can tease out the roots easily with it. Easier when soil is a bit damp, not dry.
Say what you will... but Fire is working! I have vinica and rhizome lateral grasses. I'm trying not to alow the photosynthetic process by destroying the surface leaves with fire and simultaneously not turning up the seed bank. It's working pretty well!
I'm so glad that you came through the procedure, OK. Hopefully, the results will be positive, and you'll get some answers that will help you. Love ya lots!
I tried using those black fabric cloth that you can buy at Home Depot in the garden section, but it's complete useless. Don't waste your money on that. The weeds grow right through them.
My entire yard is full of dandelion. I’m feeding the bees! When the lawns get cut, they grow right back and flower again. If you love your bees….let them have this! If you remove their first food source, the bees will have to wait for other flowers to start pollinating.
Campanula creeping bellflower is my nemesis. Tried black plastic for a year to no avail. It's still going in my ground cover in the shade and pulling to control but it's not gone.
I’ve been calling it “creeping hellflower.”
There are a bunch of these in my yard. I need to start digging them out.
These things showed up in my yard two years ago and I’ve been fighting them ever since. Thanks for letting me what I’m dealing with.
To get more of the root, USE A HOSE AT THE BASE OF THE PLANT, then carefully remove the whole plant.
I do hose weeding with crab grass. I have very sandy soil. Sometimes the grass is 6-8 inches deep (or more) and using water to liquify the soil really works. I look like a child playing in the mud when I’m done but it does work.
Round up works great. Use it sparingly and properly.
BIRDSEED OMG. This explains so much about the location of my Canada thistle outbreaks.
Pro tip. or actually amateur tip. Don't throw those weeds out. Don't compost them. Throw them in a 5 gallon bucket with some water. let them sit in there for a week or so and decompose. Then you have yourself some liquid fertilizer you didn't have to pay for.
It's a pervasive myth that the tea you are making will fertilize your plants. The best way to to help your soil and unlock nutrients for your plants is finished compost. I used to think the compost tea was the way to go, but learned it's a waste of time.
@@gigiartstudiowithartistvir3919 I would love to hear an explanation as to how it does not help, because it certainly does. Plant matter decomposes, those nutrients go back into the ground period. Whether it is finished compost, or chop and drop. It breaks down at different rates, but it all goes back into the soil. Making compost tea with invasive plants creates an anaerobic environment which will kill the roots and allows you to dump that plant matter back into the ground or into compost. If you compost without doing that, those roots are just going to grow and spread.
Not sure I would risk it with Canada thistle.
@@andicarlson5870 Not sure what there is to risk honestly. If its been soaking in an anaerobic environment and sitting out in the sun there is no chance its going to grow lol. If you have ever done this sort of thing, you probably wouldn't be worried about it either.
What that person described is not compost tea. Compost tea is heavily aerated and is made from finished compost and often soil from under healthy perennial. A balance of sugars (generally unsulfured blackstrap molasses) and fats/proteins fish emulsion encourages both fungal and bacterial life.
Basically, if you catch a lot of plant diseases at the start and whip up a batch (24hrs) you can generally obliterate things like tomato blight (the good bacteria and fungi outcompete the pathogen) and discourage some pests (applied foliarly).
I fertilize with compost, but I back it up with compost teas@gigiartstudiowithartistvir3919
I apply 2,4d in solution with a meat injector tool. Thistle roots can be 18 feet deep.
My problem here in MN is Nettle. I’ve been manually pulling them when I can. There seems to be way less of them. But they still are coming up here and there. You motivated me to keep going. Thx.
I have something called bull thistle…been digging it for years! Now Virginia creeper and sticky Willy? is coming up everywhere.
Wow! I learned so much today! Great video. So glad I recently found your channel and subscribed. I use small animal bedding as mulch. No weeds and no jumping worms!
East Texas Piney Woods here. I get dewberry and greenbriar vines. Ouchies! They are impossible to get rid of, so I just cut them back to the ground, occasionally digging some of the roots. It's a constant battle! Weeding while going to the garden is a habit well worth developing, and it's a little bit of good exercise.
A good soaking rain, leather gloves, pull them out roots and all, if the root broke off I sprayed Round-up in the hole, eventually babies popped up and I gently removed them...Leather Gloves!
We did physical removal for the last 3 years of this darned Canada thistle. Tried all the other options mentioned, also. Finally, I decided to cover everything in a very thick, good quality landscape fabric. I discovered when pulling them out manually a couple of years ago that I’m very allergic to it, so this was the best option for us. Hopefully this will solve our problem!
The constant removal method is what is finally working for me with dollar weed here in the South. Even just pulling emerging leaves where I can't pull the underground vine is working.
Bindweed is my garden "invader". And cutting it off at the root works if you are vigilant. 95% anyway. The saying I love; Bindweed - you may never eradicate it, but you can show it who is boss. Thanks for the video.
Bindweed is my bane. I did some cardboard sheet mulching to kind of "start over" because previous homeowner let it get out of control and no amount of weeding would help. But it also grows via roots so I know it will come back but hopefully now that I have the cardboard and mulch over it, it will be slow to return and I can stay on top of it.
Thanks… I’ll try the cardboard mulch. Regular wood mulch doesn’t help much
@@billinburlington5507 I did cardboard, then dirt then wood mulch so it was a pretty thick layer to smother those weeds. I've done it before with success. Great big reduction in weeds
Bindweed is the same as thistle. If it finds a gap in the cardboard it will sprout up between it. The best way that I have found to get rid of these types of weeds is to dig them up with a digging fork. I also try to trace the root as far as I can and dig up all of the root that I can find. This is very labor intensive, but I have tried everything else, and digging them up repeatedly is the only way that works. I have been gardening for over 50 years and have moved several times. Only to have to start over again battling these invasive weeds.
Yep, I never had Canada thistle until I had a large load of wood chips dumped and it took me awhile to get them moved and distributed. By then, the original area was full of thistles and I've been battling it for 5+ years now. Tried the vinegar and even tried black plastic - they just spread! Have been working on your method of continued digging but hard to get out there every day.
I have been battling Dock for 4 years and I can't get rid of it. I've heard you can eat it, but I would have to eat it every meal 365 days a year and I still would have it haunting me. HELP please!!
Pitchfork!! If thistles have already grown aggressively, using a pitchfork to get the roots out of the ground will help.
And you want to take the roots out whole because the tips are vegetatively reproducing. You may think you've pulled out the root, but if you hear a 'snap' you're going to be seeing that plant again in a few months. Treat he same way as dandelion. Use a spade shovel and place it near the crown. Position the blade vertically and push straight down with your foot a good six inches. Use the leverage to live the soil up and ideally it will crack along the line of the root and you can pull it out whole. Otherwise break up the clump with your fingers until the whole root pulls out effortlessly. Any attempt to put pressure on the root will snap the tip and the plant will be back later in the season.
In my garden I'm dealing with pasture weeds since I'm surrounded by pasture. These are serious weeds let me tell you. Kochia, Russian sage, bindweed, and pigweed to name a few, and many drop seeds by the millions. Dandelions are no big deal around these parts. We have bindweed but it's not been that much of a problem. There is also some bermuda grass and it's relentless.
Heck Yea, this does work on bind weed. First year of very diligent pulling created the next year of very few such that by the third year they are gone. Thanks heaven it was a small space but it really was loaded.
Ours is Creeping Jenny. It kills the thistles!! Absolutely hate that stuff. I will try this on that too. 😊
The weed that's giving me the biggest problem right now is mugwort. It grows via thick runners, so it's impossible to pull up without disrupting my strawberries. The mugwort was there first, and has been there since before the garden, so I don't know if there's any way to get rid of it without chopping them down every day. Yes, I know mugwort is edible, but it's also quite bitter, and I haven't found a good use for it yet.
Mugwort is also medicinal.
Health issues kept me from doing yard work. They aren’t hard to remove but they are all over. The struggle continues.
The bane of my North Carolina garden is Florida Betony! It is also a communal weed, but also makes tubers. If you leave any little part of a root or tuber, you can't get rid of it.
Thanks .... I made one mistate composting weed ...will avoid it later.
I get mine from my neighbour's yard on both sides. It's frustrating.
I pick mine as well as i do not use any harsh chemicals in my gardens. 🌻🌹🥦🌞
When I saw you with the weeding knife I had a good chuckle. I spend a lot of time walking around with a weeding knife popping weeds. Cheers from Hillsboro Oregon
Our neighbor to the west basically raises Canada thistle and teasel. The guy mows everything but these noxious weeds.
I'm near a river and have a bunch of Japanese Knotweed starting to creep in. I'm out there every other day trying to pluck it
Creeping buttercup is THE weed here in Canada (At least in BC)
Immediately sang “tainted mulch”-Soft Cell, when Luke mentioned that source.
I agree, Canada Thistle is best removed by physical pulling. Good gloves help! Pulling them up from the base when they’re still tiny reduces chances of getting poked in the fingers. I use them in compost tea.
Great video. Thanks. What do you recommend to combat quack grass (crab grass) that has infested my yard?
Cardboard sheet mulching is great, however one sheet is not enough. Two sheets is way better. Next time I’ll use 3.
Great, helpful video, thank you
I'm in S Fla. & l get these leggy weeds that have a root that looks like a carrot! I have no idea what it is, but they can take over an entire bed in one week! I spend more time weeding than anything else.
Bindweed is the bane of my existence! I can’t look through all the comments (tho I did read some)… does anyone have advice on bindweed? I try to keep up with it early in the season, but I have so much in my modest city garden…
We have Bishop's Weed here in our yard here in US zone 7B. We've had this house since the 80s, but it took over in the past decade. No idea where it came from. It's the worst weed EVER. I've spent weeks physically removing it, but every week new leaves from new communal plants emerge. It's spread 100' in a decade. It grows over 2' tall and survives winter, so it crowds out other desirable plants. The only good thing is that we've been feeding it to our chickens who don't free range. But we want to eradicate it before it takes over our entire yard. We're putting in metal raised beds this year, but have to use commercial-grade landscape fabric underneath to keep them from taking over the beds. It's also hard to eradicate because it comes up between established mature plants and, unless you dig those up, the weed network thrives in the same root system....
Have you tried putting the chickens in a chicken tractor (which is a small, mobile cage) and letting them dig up the weeds for you?
Farmers used to confine pigs on a piece of land that they wanted to clear and let the pigs root out all the weeds.
@@ValSMITH-it4lg Our yard is ~ 1/8 acre and full of raised beds / fruit trees, so it's impossible to do a chicken tractor in the typical large structure. Too many obstructions in any pathway. But we did buy hardware cloth and are going to try something similar -- mobile chicken tunnels leading to areas where we want them to weed! They already cleared the 40' x 40' enclosed run they're in after only 2 weeks, so we need to do the tunnels so that that area can re-grow.
I HATE Bishop’s Weed! I’ve been battling it for 25 years. It regrows from the tiniest fragment of root. I hate it!
Most birds that eat thistle equally like echinacea and millet. Echinacea makes great flower beds. Millet I accidently grew from millet sprays I bought at PetCo. Sorgum is a good bird forage if you have space.
I've been fighting thistle for 5+ yrs... neighbors have bird feeders so I accept the amount of thistle I get... not as bad as before...
Thanks for using the proper common name for Canada thistle!! I’m a long time weed warrior.
Thank You for the info on thistles. They are nasty! Laying cardboard sheets down and topping it with mulch helps cut down a TON of the weeds in our yard. But there are some weeds (thistle) that laugh at the cardboard. We get lots of free cardboard at our house and it does much better than landscape cloth. We also do not compost any weeds.
If you can show me how to get rid of bind weed I'll be amazed. I've tried all of these. Bind weed is incredibly resilient.
I'm in MN. My problems are dandelions and orange hawkweeds.
this is how i remove himalayan blackberry, its actually very easy because despite having multiple new shoots as opposed to the one main shoot like you mention, they come back weaker and weaker each time. i only have to go out for 10 minutes on the weekend to remove any new tiny shoots that emerge from the ground in the areas i know have blackberry rhizomes.
I'm in Zone 9b in So Cal and most of my weed issues are with dandelions and spotted spurge. My neighbor behind and upwind from me let's his weeds flourish so my garden is the "lucky" recipient of his weedy largesse. I just keep a Hori Hori on my belt and use as needed.