The next time I doubt the depth of my gardening devotion, remind me that one of the very best Mother’s Days I ever had was spending the entire afternoon pulling garlic mustard out of the Secret Garden with my younger sons. In case you aren’t familiar with it, garlic mustard is a very invasive plant that crowds out a lot of native spring ephemerals. I don’t believe it grew on the property when we moved here over 16 years ago, and then suddenly it was everywhere. Knowing the seeds persist in the soil for at least 5 years, I looked at the growing patches with increasing dismay. I finally came to my senses and realized that if I had help, it could probably all be pulled in a day–this year. Next year it would only be worse, so now was the time to start.
And what better day to ask for help than Mother’s Day. It was perfect weather for pulling weeds. The soil was moist, the air cool but not chilly, the sky cloudy but not threatening rain, no bugs–and someone else was cooking dinner! We pulled and pulled and pulled, and bagged what we pulled, because I was afraid that garlic mustard could go to seed even after being pulled. I plan on letting the plants bake in the dark plastic bags, and when I’m sure it’s rotted without having seeded, only then will I add it to the compost pile, if I ever do. I might toss it all on burn pile instead.
Four more years of pulling . . . I think I’ve just started a new family tradition for Mother’s Day.
About Kathy Purdy
Kathy Purdy discovered the joys of writing in fourth grade, when she started corresponding with a former classmate. She's been writing letters ever since, first on looseleaf, then electronically, and now as weblog entries. That makes you, the blog reader, her pen pal. Her first independent (though frustrating) attempts at gardening were made in high school, though the gardening bug didn't bite hard until her mid-thirties, when she found herself mistress of a rural home on 15 acres. • USDA Hardiness Zone:4 • AHS Heat Zone: 3 • Location: rural; Southern Tier of NY • Geographic type: foothills of Appalachian Mountains • Soil Type: acid clay • Experience level: intermediate • Particular interests: colchicums, narcissus, cottage gardening, NY native plants, gardening with/for children
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Can it be composted safely without making the compost toxic?
It’s just the seeds you have to worry about. If you don’t kill them, you will have garlic mustard everywhere you spread compost.
Who knew… it’s edible: http://www.environmentreport.org/story.php?story_id=4999
I learned that somewhere along the line. Just haven’t bothered to try yet. Just think, if it became my family’s favorite vegetable, we might eat it to extinction!
I have a kind of mustard that has sulfuric yellow flowers. I bought it from a garden center, where it nestled among other vegetable and herb starts. It self sows. Very prolific!
I’ve wondered for years what this weed was called. It likes moist spots at the edges of woods. The really dastardly thing about it is that it sets seed so early in the season–right when you’re just getting to work on your vegetable garden or mulching your flower-beds and don’t want to be interrupted by any weeding jobs.
Twitter: @Annieinaustin
Update: today we went to see the last steam locomotive made for Union Pacific, built in 1944. The train was passing through Austin from San Antonio and had stopped so that RR fans and families with kids could see it up close.
As we walked away from the station along the tracks, I noticed a huge stand of garlic mustard! First time I ran into it here.
Annie
I am another cold climate gardener, with areas of our land zone 3 or even 2. A new plant that just started coming up everywhere last year is yellow bedstraw. I’m not sure what to do other than keep mowing it down. Another one that arrived via some plant a few years ago is the horrible goutweed. I work at pulling it out constantly. And then when the town groomed our road, suddenly we started getting yellow thistle. They are the bane of my gardening life. :
DO NOT PULL GOUTWEED!
You will only make your infestation worse. It spreads primarily by underground rhizomes, and they are stimulated to grow faster and farther by having the aboveground part of the plant pulled.
I’m a Goutweed war veteran, and I have to tell you that you cannot dig it up successfully, either, because it will regrow from a small fragment of rhizome left in the soil, and they break easily.
Sorry to say, Round-Up is literally the only recourse. Anything else you do will only make it worse.
If the goutweed patch is still confined, you could try covering it and a 2-foot margin on all sides with several layers of black plastic for a couple of years. Sometimes that works.
Ok. But you could do triage on the writing tasks, same as on the weeding, as I saw in your article in the new issue of a href=”http://www.hortmag.com/” title=”Horticulture magazine website”>Horticulture magazine — nice piece, by the way! It’s what reminded me to return to your website!
In other words, you need not wait til you have the perfect essay, but just drop us a few lines now and then…..
I would like to write about it. It is on my list of things to write about. But I think it will be an essay and not a blog post. And it will have to be when there’s less weeding to do.
Have your written about your ‘Secret Garden’ ? I would like to read about it!
I have this garlic mustard too. I have sort of corraled it. That is the best I can do. The other one that has taken off on me is Queen Anne’s Lace. I have one garden where that one reigns. It is my own fault for liking the flower and inviting it in the garden. What was I thinking? Your Mother’s Day weather sounds wonderful!
Twitter: @Annieinaustin
This one brought back memories of the never-ending battle against garlic mustard! I also used the bag/wilt technique in Illinois, but we have different invasives to pull here in Austin.
When still living in Illinois we read that it had been brought to the USA as one of the traditional ingredients for spring tonics, and also that the closer you lived to the railroad tracks the heavier your infestation.
It sounds like you had a great Mothers’ Day!
Annie
Blooming now – Parrot tulips, which I love. Honesty, which I love. Globe flowers – I need more of these. Peonies and bearded irises, very close. Currently delighting in the incredible smell of a village filled with blooming lilacs.
How funny! I just pulled this plant. I let it go thinking it was some lost perennial – it seemed so plant like. I was going to mail you some for identification, but I decided today it was a weed and yanked it.
I, too, spent Mother’s Day moving plants, weeding, mulching, and sowing the last of the seeds. Very rewarding!