National Volunteer Week and Garlic Mustard



Canada Goose and the Potomac River



Spring Beauty - really; that's its name.





So what do National Volunteer Week and Garlic Mustard have in common?  And what on earth is garlic mustard? 

Well, it is a plant, one that shoots up in early Spring.  It has a pretty flower, less than 1/2 inch across, 4 white petals; leaves are more or less heart-shaped and a bit serrated.  After blooming the plant dies away but can return year after year.   It spreads by seed and can produce up to 1,000 seeds.  The seeds can lie dormant for up to 5 years.  In addition its roots emit a toxin that kills the roots of adjacent plants.  Garlic mustard is an very invasive plant that is really very nasty  In other words, this plant will overtake and kill all the wildflowers that make Spring woodlands so interesting.  Here's what it looks like:

This plant is easy to uproot, as the roots grow more or less sideways and are shallow.  It is the ONLY good thing about this plant!  Although someone said you could make garlic mustard pesto. 

Next:  National Volunteer Week.  By Presidential Declaration, the week of April 10 through April 16, 2011 is National Volunteer Week.  So the C & O Canal Association's chairman of the Volunteers-in-the-Park committee organized groups of volunteers to yank out garlic mustard plants at specific places in the C & O Canal National Historical Park.   (The Park is 185 miles long so that's a lot of sites.)    I was one of 7 people who spent 2.5 hours at Carderock yesterday afternoon filling plastic sacks with this nasty invasive plants.   My back ached for the rest of the day.  But I slept very very well, thank you.