#garlic mustard plant

[wherekizzialives]

The Small Things Spreading Joy: May 2024

[froggyforest]

As garlic mustard is starting to show up, please remember that it's invasive in North America BUT native to Europe and Asia. So taking the whole plant is fine in America but not in Europe. I'm making this post in reference to last year's posts about war on garlic mustard. I've seen a post of someone who took the whole plants and they were European and learned that it's not invasive there. So do your research and forage safely and ethically.

[plantanarchy]

listen i love and grow and appreciate native plants as much as any plant ecology nerd but good god the energy of a lot of native plant discussion on social media continues to be so............ much

[los-plantalones]

garlic mustard (alliaria petiolata) is the most invasive little bitch around. not only do the roots exude a chemical that inhibits the growth of other plants, it produces seeds like a MONSTER

i may not be able to win any real battle against this assclown, but i like to do my small part by eating a lot of it. in the spring the young greens are yummy, and the roots have a horseradish taste that’s pretty good. and speaking of seeds…

garlic mustard seeds are a more mild version of yellow or brown mustard seeds, and can be used as a substitute for both. i use it in my pickling spice mix and let me tell you, it is FIRE 🔥

[morethansalad]

Vegan Irish "Egg" Rolls

inspired by a dish at the now defunct Clarke’s Irish Pub in Miami Beach, these egg rolls are stuffed with a traditional Irish meal, veganized!

[the-bramble--patch]

Garlic mustard haul :)

[queer-ecopunk]

Bane of my existence right here

[guooey]

Me on my way to make the same sandwich for the third month in a row (nothing else tastes good)

[toadstoolgardens]

Eat & Destroy: Garlic Mustard

Fuck garlic mustard (in North America, anyway)! This plant is highly invasive and a serious threat to native plants through overcrowding, prolific seeding, and allellopathy. Brought to North America from Europe in the 1800s as a food plant, garlic mustard has now gone completely feral. In Europe garlic mustard or Jack by the Hedge is native and has it's place in the food chain.

Garlic mustard is also edible and tasty raw or cooked. You may have seen posts encouraging eating invasives, which is great and yes you should! But with garlic mustard harvesting for eating does nothing to control it's spread. If you want to make a difference in the biodiversity of your local woodlands you'll have to do more than forage. You need to eat and destroy.

Finding & Identifying Garlic Mustard

This bastard of a plant can grow just about anywhere. Roadsides, along forest edges, along creeks and streams, in open forest, in parks, around the city, and everywhere in between. And when you find it you'll probably find a lot of it.

Garlic mustard is a biennial herb that sends up tiny leaves in the first year and grows basal rosettes of leaves and tall flower stalks in the second year. The leaves have scalloped edges and are fairly round and kidney-shaped around the basal rosette and become more triangular as they move up the stalk. The stems are often purple-tinged. When crushed the leaves will give off their distinct garlicy smell. When fully grown it can reach up to 3 feet all.

In order to effectively remove garlic mustard you'll need to pull it before it flowers and seeds. It will likely flower somewhere around March-May depending on your area. The flowers are small, white, with four petals and the seed pods form on the stem beneath. The long, thin seed pods are about two inches long with small black seeds.

Harvesting Garlic Mustard for Eating

To harvest garlic mustard simply use your fingers and snap off the top tender portion of the stem and leaves, usually the top 6-12 inches. The stem should snap easily. The younger the plants the stronger their flavor.

Many foragers say the tastiest time to harvest garlic mustard is when the flowers are budding, but garlic mustard tops can bloom and go to seed even after you've picked them! A slightly more succulent stem isn't worth risking bringing invasive garlic mustard seeds home with you!!

Eating Garlic Mustard

The leaves and stems of garlic mustard are edible cooked or raw. The leaves have a mustard green/garlic-like flavor with some bitterness. The stem is the most delicious part. It's sweet and garlicy like a mix between a snap pea and a garlic scape.

Eat them raw, blend them up, saute them, steam them, add them to pestos and hummus, add them to pastas and soups and sauces, bake the leaves into chips, there's so many options with garlic mustard.

Removing & Managing Garlic Mustard

Now that you have plenty of garlic mustard tops to eat, let's destroy the rest!!!

To properly remove garlic mustard each plant needs to be pulled up root and all and either burned or suffocated to death. It takes some work so grab some foraging friends and organize a garlic mustard pull! Pull from the base of the stem to have the best chance of getting the whole root out.

Once you've pulled and gathered up all your garlic mustard roots and shoots, do not compost them!! They can still flower and seed and continue spreading. Instead you'll want to either:

Burn the fuck out of them. Burn them as soon as possible because as they dry the seed pods can still burst open and spread. Practice good fire safety and dance around it while you watch your plant enemies burn.

If you're not able to have a fire, your next best option is to suffocate them. Bag up the garlic mustard in opaque bags and leave them in the sun to die.

Remember where the patch of garlic mustard was and return at least once a year and repeat. With regular pulling you will deplete the garlic mustard's seed bank, but full removal can take years of regular pulling. It's a slow but important battle and you are making a difference with each plant pulled!!

Management Tips:

Don't leave any pulled garlic mustard on the ground because (you guessed it) it can still flower and seed. Make sure to gather and take it all with you to burn/suffocate.

Mowing is not effective for the same reason. Mowing when the seed pods are present will make things even worse!

Brush off your shoes and clothes before leaving the garlic mustard patch. Don't take home sneaky seeds

Some areas offer free control for invasive species like garlic mustard. Look into if there's any city or county weed control programs near you (and make sure they don't control by spraying chemicals!)

Some areas hold volunteer workdays to pull garlic mustard and teach proper management. Look into nature centers and volunteer groups near you, or start and plan your own!

If everyone interested in foraging went out and ate and destroyed a patch of garlic mustard, we might see a day where it's no longer a threat to our native woodlands! Be safe and happy foraging!🌱

Source, Source, Lyle, Katie Letcher. The Complete Guide to Edible Wild Plants, Mushrooms, Fruits, and Nuts. 2017. Pp. 16-18

[greencheekconure27]

[eggtrolls]

fuck asian bittersweet all my homies HATE asian bittersweet (ft. 25% of the garlic mustard I removed with my BARE. HANDS. because the roots are too fine to use gloves. The soil is damp and it’s fucking cold and I have a circulatory disorder and I am in hell.)

BUT I am supremely cool and sexy because the older people taking their afternoon walks looooooove talking to me about whatever weird plant stuff I’m doing and today one of those people was an ESL professor from Ecuador at a nearby college and I was like hiiiiiiii do you want to be in my gay little group (unsaid: because we desperately need more Spanish speakers) and she was like oh of course! So gold star for Bongo 🥳🤩😌 and then we had a chat about the historical cycles of anti-immigrant sentiment of rising ethnonationalism and the false perception of a homeland and I recommended she watch A Touch of Spice (the saddest scene of all time is in this movie) and she said it sounded cool and wrote it down! and now I’m gonna eat some rice with spicy pickled bamboo shoots because I’m worth it.

[umiagawa]

Garlic Mustard Flower Fritter

[bethanythebogwitch]

Hey! I don’t typically reach out to people on this accursed website, but your posts are really cool and informative! I saw that you’re gonna destroy some invasive plants; are you part of a volunteer group that does invasive plant control, or is it a job thing?

It's part of my job. I currently work with the local park district doing native plant restoration. That means a lot of killing invasive plants. Right now the priorities are garlic mustard (which is about to go to seed so we need to get as many out as we can) and hemlock (because its at the size where you can still pull it up without a shovel. We do a volunteer thing two days a week, which is how I started out.

[kiseiakhun]

Reading up on invasive plants continue to be a mistake because now that the garlic mustard's died back I am instead seeing dog-strangling vine everywhere. Admittedly Vincetoxicum rossicum and Vincetoxicum nigrum are pretty metal names but they really are out there blanketing the edge of every disturbed field and choking out the rest of the plant life...

[mysteriouslyjellyfish]

somehow the dandelion flowers balance out the bitterness of garlic mustard pesto very nicely. plus they are little sunbursts that make me smile.

I spent a lot of yesterday digging up two big patches of creeping bellflower. I know they’re invasive and it makes me nervous how often I see them absolutely everywhere // I just can’t hate a plant, I can’t // I dig them up [for work, because I am paid to, and] so we can put some native plants in their place // (insert the many reasons we love those native plants) // digging them up feels pretty violent and disturbs a lot of soil and the many critters in it, I probably went almost two feet down to get the deepest bits // thinking about resilient sources of food that do not have to be babied along with tons of water and special soil amendments in veggie beds // but also thinking of biodiversity // and inherent value of a species, as something you do not want to lose to “invasives” not just for the sake of the greater ecosystem but because you’re human and you love things and you love plants and I just think they have basic worth // I dunno, man

anyway I took some home and boiled them and only tried a small bit last night bc that’s how I try a new foraged food. one bite was good then turned bitter in my mouth, the next bite was good and stayed good. try more tomorrow? anyone have experience eating these? the only real information I can find is in Sam Thayer’s books. they don’t seem to be in the usual wild food websites. also I think they are the nicest creamy color.

[morethansalad]

Vegan Pot Pie with Spring Vegetables