June too soon,
July they die,
August you must
So goes the old saying with regard to controlling thistles in your fields, and there are basically three methods you can choose from. Chemicals, topping and pulling.
On Thursday evening I was asked by a neighbour to slip over and humanely dispatch a young foal that had been hit by some idiot speeding on one of our moorland roads. As we drove through his fields I noticed large areas of his hedgerows were browned off and dead. “Round up?” I asked. “Yes” he replied “and d’you know, ever since I did it I’ve had a terrible sore throat”.
And there you have it. Use a pesticide and you will not only decimate wildlife and leave unsightly scars in the greenery, but will also put your own health at risk to boot.
Alternatively, nearly every pasture farm has a topper. These are robust mowing machines that are designed to kill the thistle while leaving the grass intact. Our earliest machine was a ‘finger mower’, and these machines were universally acknowledged to be the best tool for the job all through the ‘50’s and ‘60’s and still have their fans today.
Two 4’ arms with sharpened ‘fingers’ down their length would be lowered to run perpendicular to the rear wheel of the tractor and a complex array of wheels and belts would drive an apple wood shaft (it had to be green apple wood for the perfect combination of strength and flexibility) which would guide one blade over the other as you went along. Where these fiddly beast score over more modern machines is that as the blades ran to the side of the tractor, you didn’t run over (and flatten without cutting) the weeds you were trying to prune.
However my favourite method (and not surprisingly, the least used by far) is pulling. If you can pull out the individual thistle root-an-all it will never come back. In this I am aided by a fantastic tool called the Lazy Dog, which was designed by a firm in North Yorkshire with this specific job in mind.
One of the best eighty quid I have ever invested on the farm. It gives me an excuse to spend an hour or so each day in some of the quietest corners of the farm with just the dogs and the view to keep me company. Better still, you know as you tear each thistle’s roots from the soil with a satisfying ripping sound, you are saying goodbye for ever.