Has anyone successfully done no dig w a thistle infestation?

[ticklemepinker]

i have a bed that has grown monster crops of thistles for about 3 years. I now want to use it to grow asparagus, so i need to deal w them really properly.

I did the Charles Dowding cardboard and manure thing, but these are demon plants, and they are coming up through the cardboard and manure almost as if it wasn’t there.

Has anyone made this work? What more do I need to do/what have I done wrong? Currently plan is to scrape off all the card and top dressing, dig out as much root as possible, and then start afresh. Is that likely to work? A thistle-filled asparagus bed would be a nightmare…

Following as we have the same issue. No luck with cardboard and leaf mulch, they just grew through.

I would spray them off with the strongest weed killer you can find.

I think with weeds like thistles, brambles, marestail - they are just bastards. You might weaken them with a very thick layer of cardboard and manure but then you'd still have to dig them out.. ,more than likely.

I think the best idea is you take the big bastard weeds out and then do no dig.

This absolutely. Weaken them with a very very thick mulch and then dig them out.

Damn it! Ok, that’s next weekend planned - removing my no-dig layer, cleaning out below, and then remaking it all. Lucky I like digging.

does anyone know if I can plant the crowns straight into my manure top layer? I don’t have spare soil/proper compost, unless I rob another bed…

Even Charles says you have to dig to prepare sometimes, especially with the tough perennials. I think he has a video about planting asparagus.

I did watch a vid - not him tho, but a no dig one… I think my expectations of the cardboard were way too high.
ok here is my plan:
back to sq 1.
1 take off mulch and cardboard and dig out all the roots we can find.
2 re cardboard (thicker) and re mulch
3 then cover w weed proof membrane - I have a breathable tarp thing
4 then, when the crowns come (April) take off the tarp, see what’s going on, and plan to plant above the cardboard in manurey-composty mix

Lots to do!

I have had creeping thistle and had to throw everything at them ( apart from herbicide). Digging, blow torching the flowers before they set seed, covering, and more digging. I highly doubt that no dog would have done it, not in 2 years anyway.

I was in very much this situation with a massive thistle infestation, where I wanted my new rhubarb patch to be. In the end, we dug all the roots out, then mulched heavily with compost, planted the rhubarb patch and mulched around the plants with unprocessed wool which we had spare. There is the occasional weed, but very few, and the crops are excellent.

I've never had much luck with cardboard as a weed suppressant, it always just turns to slime and grows strange looking fungi! I'm probably doing something wrong, but it doesn't work for us.

I am about 1/4 way through the digging - the roots are DEEP!! not sure I am going deep enough to get them all (two spits) but hopefully those that are left will have been properly weakened.

The cardboard I put down in December had indeed pretty much completely rotted away, so it’s not surprising it hadnt done much. I don’t have wool available, sadly, so I think I will re-cardboard - more and thicker this time. And I’ll put the asparagus on top.

Yes the roots are deep and if you don’t get them all out they they spring multiroots at you 😡. However these are of the weaker, yellow kind and if you keep at them they eventually give up. A sharp hoe is your friend here.