Diana Jung Stacey has done a huge amount of garlic mustard removal. Her documentation follows. At the end she writes that the leaves are less bitter to eat when they’re young. Has anyone made a garlic mustard salad? Diana writes:

I pulled 3 bags of garlic mustard yesterday.  If I leave them by the side of the street, they will be picked up for incineration??  I can put them in our trash can, but I thought it better for them to be incinerated.  One is located by the bridge just east of our driveway, south side of Overbrook.  Two bags are located on the east side of Overbrook, across from the fire hydrant and John and Stacey Durst’s house.  I worked for about 4 hours.

A couple weeks ago, when you saw me, I bagged two bags, about 6 hours.  That day, I spent a lot of time pulling baby honeysuckle, as well as baby garlic mustard, and making sure all the roots came out with the plants (that’s why it took so long).

A few weeks or so before that, I pulled about 1 bag for 1 hour, I cleaned up the garlic mustard growing along the alley behind our house.  That alley is access for some of the Overbrook addresses without driveway access on Overbrook.  So for your record-keeping….this spring, I pulled 6 bags over 11 hours…..I don’t think I’ve reported that to you before, but you may have already added the 2 bags which I left on Overbrook for pickup a few weeks ago.

I pulled all the plants I could see….but it would be really good if someone else has time to walk thru and look for any strays I missed, as it’s difficult to spot the plants now that the flowers are gone.  Here’s a description of where I covered:

Starting at the area southeast of the bridge at North Canyon & Overbrook, I worked on both sides of the street, passing our house (220 Overbrook), all the way down to Cooke Road.  I covered all of the areas which do not look like they are on someone’s property, and I also pulled garlic mustard within 10 feet of the road on private properties.

The last couple years I worked the area from Cooke and Overbrook (across from our old house, 298 Overbrook) down to in front of the Dursts.  I usually try to cover the entire area all the back to the water, but yesterday, the oppressive heat and mosquito attacks caused me to scan for the larger plants from halfway into the woods, rather than hiking all the way in…..also, there was a patch of large garlic mustard near the road in that area, but it had about a 6’ radius of poison ivy around it…..I did not attempt to tackle that in shorts.  I did pull a lot of garlic mustard clustered inside smaller poison ivy patches by crushing the poison ivy with a branch that I could step on to get closer to the mustard.

Looking up the property at our old house, it actually looked pretty good.  I had been clearing garlic mustard there, on the hillside, for probably 5-6 years.  I kind of want to ask the new owners if they would mind if I looked it over for plants….I hate to think there might be a couple that will burst open, spewing out hundreds of new plants!

Well, we’ll keep up the battle.  Maybe next year, I’ll try getting out earlier and pulling some to try a recipe.  It’s suggested that it’s better to eat before it flowers….after flowering, it’s more bitter, I think.