Hi Shannon,
The experts around here recommend a very sharp weed hoe and a light touch. They say that when you slice of the weed right at the ground level without stirring up the soil too much you prevent new seeds from being exposed and sprouting (which happens when you dig). Then you don't have to separate the weeds from dirt when you toss them into the green waste.

You can then mulch about 2 or 3 inches deep to prevent more weeds from sprouting.

Personally, I use a flat shovel and scrape them off and leave them there.

Renee

Glyphosphate (Roundup®) is an herbicide, but not a poison. It works by interfering with amino acid synthesis and leaves no residual effect behind in the soil. I wouldn't hesitate to use it.
NatureÂs Glory Weed and Grass Killer RTU and Fast Acting Burn Out RTU are two vinegar-based herbicides that thistle will also succumb to in the pre-flowering stage.
You probably also need some soil improvement (compost) to make your soil less thistle friendly.

We have new patches every year.... thanks to neighbors who don't get rid of theirs. We hand spray each and every plant singly with glyphosphate because we don't want to kill off the wild flowers and grasses too. If you have a large area with nothing else to protect you could easily spray the whole works, but it might take several years of individual spraying to get rid of all plants.

Several things to know:

1. Cutting them off doesn't work because you'll just get multiple plants from one root.

2. It doesn't do any good to just cut-off the buds/flowers -- those have to be carefully thrown away because once the bud has developed it WILL become a flowerhead capable of being fertilized and then become a seedhead EVEN if it's removed from the parent plant... or the parent plant is cut-off or pulled and left to lay on the ground.

3. Kill baby plants if at all possible. We can't because they're hidden under the
other wild plants until boom! one day here they are in all their 3-4' of glory.

We have 5 acres of star thistle. We have been fighting it for 3 years and have not had much luck. DH keeps it mowed down, but sometimes they just adapt into shorter plants and bloom just short enough that our riding lawn tractor can't get them without hitting rocks. I can keep them out of my garden but their in our surrounding fields.

Thanks for all the input, this is really helpful as I need to do something, they are getting bigger fast! One question came up in our household about this, whether we have Thistles or Nettles? Are they one and the same? I had a horticulturist from Pierce College visit and he told me these were Russian Thistles, but husband thinks they are Nettles based on how they sting, and a google search shows that Russian Thistles are same as Tumbleweeds, and are much bushier than what we have. Ours are leggy bright green plants with serrated pointy leaves, they bloom with flowers that later dry up and the top stalks turn into clusters of prickly burrs that disintegrate into loads of individual thorns. Last year some of them got to about 5 feet tall before we got around to pulling them out. I'm curious about the Thistle vs. Nettle thing, but either way I want them outta my yard! Thanks again for the advice, sb

Shannon,

Russian Thistle is neither a true thistle nor a nettle. It's related to the weed, Lamb's Quarter and to the vegetable, spinach...

There's another nasty weed in California known as Yellow Star Thistle. It also is not a true thistle, but is the same family as a flower my Mother use to grow (Bachelor Buttons or Cornflower).

For some reason Star Thistle popped into my mind when I first read "Russian Thistle". Probably because it's a terror in fields in my area and also supposedly an invasive from the same area of Eurasia. It's another weed that is nearly impossible to eradicate...

It sounds like star thistle to me too. All of these plants have a sting, like a nettle. I get little raised bumps from all of them. The nettles in my area do not grow more that about three inches tall.

And yes, Russian Thistle is also known as Tumbleweed.

Shannon, do a google image search for yellow star thistle and see if it looks like your weed.
Renee

If your weed does turn out to be star thistle, please don't use it in a salad to get rid of it (you mentioned something about thistle being edible).

Star thistle has been known to poison horses; I knew a graduate student in the Midwest who was extracting toxins from this plant for his animal husbandry thesis.

I have a lot of milk thistle (the one with the white variegation) and one or two other kinds that are a little smaller. I don't worry about them until early spring (except in the garden and lawn), and just mow them a couple times in spring when they start to flower but before they set seed. Then at least for my work in thistle fighting I get a considerable amount of compost and mulch for the garden. Fewer of them come up these days than when I first started this, but it's impossible to mow the entire countryside and the wind blown seed tends to get around.

I've actually kind of learned to not mind the thistles due to the amount of compost they produce - milk thistle in particular is a great compost crop.

Next season I'm putting in some cardoon and artichokes since their cousins seem so happy here.

For the lawn I have a manual coring aerator and that's my thistle and dandelion killer. I just go around the lawn and take cores from the center of the rosettes. That leaves cores with the taproot on the surface to die, and the aeration improves the health of the lawn by loosening the soil and improving watcher catching capability and retention, and providing some loose surface soil for overseeded fescue to hide from the birds under and germinate. That can be a lot of cores, but a good job of aeration will take a core ever 6" or so.

Well much googling later, I think that my bane is mostly Burning Nettle, with a bit of Stinging Nettle or some other variant scattered around as well. Some of the plants are much leggier/taller than others, with more rounded leaves and a different pace of growth. The flowers are not yellow so I don't think it's Star Nettle.

I appreciate all the advice on removal, as I have so much of it I'll be able to try a few different methods to see what works best. As far as edibility, there is a LOT of material out there touting it as a tasty cooked green; also many recommendations of it as an herbal remedy for many ailments ranging from urinary infections to nosebleeds to arthritis. And, apparently in Scotland, they make cloth from it. I'm not sure I'll pursue any of those ideas, but it is interesting to read about.

Here is a link that might be useful: UC Davis page on Burning and Stinging Nettles

Check out this link you may find it helpful...
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/thistlecontrol.html
bgrow_gardens

That's an interesting article, kinda makes me want to get a herd of the right kind of weevil, just cause "weevil" is such a cool word! But, that's a long term plan, 8-10 years, plus I don't really want to fuss around with a colony of bugs that aren't already living here.

Also it's interesting that the article suggests vinegar as a potential thistle treatment option, I already have a big spray bottle with diluted vinegar in it so maybe I'll spritz a patch and see what happens. Then probably move onto hoeing/cutting/removing them, figure out what works best.

thx sb

we have 3 kinds here. one is small, gets about a foot tall and almost as big around, the next is a bit bigger but not much the third is huge, getting 4 to 6 feet tall and larger around. All 3 look very similar when small. I use a hula hoe. Beats the fee for the gym or buying exercise equipment.
The second part of dealing with them is grow something else on purpose, and soon that will take control and the "thistle" will have no where to go.

A new product by Monterey Lawn and Garden has just been registered specifically for thistle control. Check it out because it has pre-emergent as well as post emergent applications. Al

I'll look into that product, thanks. As a little update, about a month ago I went after the carpet of baby nettle plants with zeal and a sharp hoe as suggested and removed about 3 green bins full. Today I went out and removed about half-a-bin that had escaped the first wave of eradication. They are a little bit easier to remove now that they are bigger. I have other parts of the yard that are full of them but are less accessible, but will have to be dealt with as the veggie garden is nearby and I'm already tired of weeding out the little devils. But I think the Russian Thistles are next on the list, they are coming in like little cabbages with nasty thorns on them already and are filling up a small side yard next to the pool. Thanks again for all the advice...