Garlic Mustard Information
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Help Combat Garlic Mustard! Garlic Mustard is starting to bloom! You may have noticed plants in your yard or roadside with tiny white flowers with heart shaped or oval leaves. Try rubbing a leaf, if it smells garlick-y, it is garlic mustard! It is an invasive plant that flowers in its second year, usually 1 to 3 feet tall but they can also be much lower to the ground. First year plants are very short and almost violetlike with no flowers. Garlic mustard can take over an area quickly and changes the soil chemistry so native seedlings have trouble growing. They were brought over as a culinary herb so are edible (try smaller leaves in spinach recipes or in pesto!). They are easy to pull so help natives by pulling plants before the seedpods dry out, and bagging them (preferably in paper) – do not put them into your regular compost!
SWEET is a volunteer 401(c) group in Sudbury that has been working for many years on the town wide pull. This year we will not have a kick-off or bag distribution site but we will have bag deliveries in Sudbury. You can email us at sweetinvasives@gmail.com for bags or more information. Check out the CISMA website for more information on garlic mustard or this video on identification tips.