It’s cool that they’re thinking about the health of forests, but pulling up garlic mustard has got to rank pretty low as far as impact goes.
If spending time in the forest is a requirement for the improvement work (opposed to desk work, fighting land developers, etc), I would think working on something like erosion control, stream bank cover, or if you need to pull something up go after vines threatening large trees.
At the least I’d like to see some evidence about why garlic mustard is so bad for the forests. Like compared to other issues facing the forests, there are SO MANY, how does garlic mustard stack up?
As for eating it, I only really like the young leaves. Though i’ve been told the best part is the tender stalks of second year plant.
I mean they kind of say in there. It's an early emergent and it has broad leaves and grows dense mats, which inhibits native species from emerging. The native species are more suited to pollinators and other insects. They're also better at holding the soil together (so removing garlic mustard does in fact improve erosion control)
In my own exploration on my land, I've noticed that dead wood and leaves break down much slower where garlic mustard grows. This could be lack of insects or it could be something allopathic in the soil left by garlic mustard against fungal growth. In any case, the stuff is definitely detrimental to the land around it.
As for edibility the young greens are honestly some of my favorites. They work really well in spicy, meat heavy stir-fries and provide fresh greens at a time when there aren't a lot of fresh veggies about except for tough old kale and grocery store spinach.
Right, but like -- how do we know that's bad? Could it be that covering the ground is actually _better_ for certain species to thrive which has a net positive effect on the ecosystem (I don't know, but it's not clear from the passing mention that garlic mustard is out-competing other species.
The idea that we could return to a world where there are only native species in an ecosystem is totally insane. I'm not suggesting that we should let all native species die off, or be left to fight it out for themselves without human intervention. But focusing on presence of native species as an indicator for ecosystem health doesn't seem to be a helpful measure.
If spending time in the forest is a requirement for the improvement work (opposed to desk work, fighting land developers, etc), I would think working on something like erosion control, stream bank cover, or if you need to pull something up go after vines threatening large trees.
At the least I’d like to see some evidence about why garlic mustard is so bad for the forests. Like compared to other issues facing the forests, there are SO MANY, how does garlic mustard stack up?
As for eating it, I only really like the young leaves. Though i’ve been told the best part is the tender stalks of second year plant.