A patch of the invasive garlic mustard plant has returned to an area behind the Town of Webb Historical Association’s barn, and Gail Murray, Historical Association director, has started pulling it up by the handfuls. She tried to get rid of it last year, she said, but it has come back again.
And she is hardly the only one that will be tackling the perennial pest now that the warmer weather is here.
The innocent-looking green leafy plant is low to the ground currently, and the rain-soaked soil makes it easier to remove, said Murray, pulling a clump from the soil.
Murray said that now is the time to eradicate the non-native plant that chokes out native wildflowers.
It will be more difficult to remove once the plant grows two or three feet taller and sprouts its tiny white flowers, she said.
But don’t toss it on the ground, thinking that will be the end of it, because it will reseed and keep coming back.
Carefully bag it and bring it to the Transfer Station for disposal.
Gary Lee, Weekly Adiron-dack columnist and retired forest ranger, is very aware that the garlic mustard plant is thriving in Old Forge.
“It’s around almost every building on Main Street,” he said. “Almost everybody’s got it now.”
He first discovered it 14 years ago in Old Forge growing on the slope behind the Old Forge Library, after hay was used for a lawn project.
“That’s how it comes in—on hay or straw,” he said. “We pulled it up for several years but it just seems to come back. I spray it now with Roundup weed killer. That kills it but it kills everything else around it.”
It’s not poisonous, he said. “In fact, it’s edible. You can make a salad out of it and it’s quite tasty. It’s garlicky and it smells like garlic,” he said.
“But each plant may have four or five thousand seeds, so it doesn’t take much to take over all the wildflowers and native plants.”
“It’s definitely worth the time and trouble to pull it up,” he said.
“It keeps it from going to seed but it takes seven years to completely remove it because the seeds are viable for seven years. If you miss a year you’re seven years back again. But It’s beatable,” he added optimistically. “Get someone to eat salad and we’re all set.”
