Of Thistles and Vetch

I promised to tell more of the lower pasture here.

So. First, a short story.

We have 2 acres, right?  About 2/3 of an acre is weeds.. Ugh.  We want to get rid of the weeds, which is mostly prickly thistle.  Why?  It's unsightly, not fun when the kids run through it, and when it goes to seed, the seeds fly down the road to the other neighbor with the cows.  Not good for the cows. In the past, we've just roto-tilled it in, but this year we wanted to try something different.  Something useful (other than just putting more organic matter into the soil.)  Without digging it up and without spraying harmful chemicals.  Hmmm.  So last fall, we did some research, internet and with some permaculture friends and we came up with the idea of planting vetch to smother the weeds.  Vetch is a legume which, in theory, climbs the weeds (much like your garden-variety beans or peas) and, in essence,  makes it very difficult for the weeds to grow.  In theory.  Ahem.

Well, vetch seems to like warm weather and plenty of water to germinate.  We've had plenty of water lately, but not so much on the warm.  Thankfully, Hubby was wise and decided to also plant some triticale to "hide" the weeds and also to be used to feed the sheep and chickens or, if it wasn't suitable, for bedding. "Just in case" the vetch plan didn't work.  In any case, the long graceful stalks of triticale would look a heck of a lot better than a lower pasture full of thistles!

So the triticale came up amazing and the vetch that is with it, also.  Both are tall and beautiful waving in the wind, and the weeds are minimal in that area.

But then there's the center of this area.

You can see here the difference in the height of the plants:

Thistles on the left, triticale on the right, and the darker green bit at the back of the photo.

The thistle section didn't get as much water or the thistles are too aggressive or... I dunno.  But the thistles are coming up crazy.  The vetch is there, but struggling.  I still haven't lost hope on the vetch, but I wanted to help it out, so I went out this morning with this handy-dandy tool:

... and began lopping off the heads of the thistles.  Very cathartic, I must say!  My neighbor, who will remain nameless, is beginning to think I'm off my rocker.

As well, I didn't want to totally hack away at the thistles, as they appear to be home to these, in all life stages:

Hmmm.

C'mon vetch, GROW!