Garlic Mustard

We have met the enemy. And he is delicious.

Meet Mr. Alliaria petiolata. He also goes under the alias of Jack-by-the-hedge, Garlic Root, Hedge Garlic, Penny Hedge, and Poor Man’s Mustard, but is most commonly known simply as garlic mustard.

Garlic mustard is a cool season biennial herb with stalked, triangular to heart-shaped, coarsely toothed leaves that give off an odor of garlic when crushed. First-year plants appear as a rosette of green leaves close to the ground. Rosettes remain green through the winter and develop into mature flowering plants the following spring. Flowering plants of garlic mustard reach from 2 to 3-½ feet in height and produce buttonlike clusters of small white flowers, each with four petals in the shape of a cross.

The plant may look innocent enough, but it is a very persnickety invasive that poses a severe threat to native plants and animals in forest communities in much of the eastern and midwestern U.S. Once introduced to an area, garlic mustard out-competes native plants by aggressively monopolizing light, moisture, nutrients, soil and space. When that happens, wildlife species that depend on other native plants are deprived of their essential food.

One reason that garlic mustard is so persnickety is due to its allelopathic nature– which means that it chemically possesses means of deterring (or outright harming) native plants or insects that try to thrive near it. Another reason it’s such a pain in the rear is that seeds contained in the soil can germinate up to five years after being produced!

One good thing about garlic mustard, though, is that it is in the Brassicaceae family– the same family as the collards, cabbage, and mustard greens found in your garden– and just like them, it is edible.

I’ve read that you can steam the leaves and stems just like you would other leafy greens or broccoli, and I’ve heard of some folks using in on top of their pizzas. I picked some this past weekend while on a wild edibles hike and plan on making pesto. If you harvest from a mature plant, the stems are supposedly less bitter than the leaves.

Garlic mustard is a fairly safe wild edible to gather as there isn’t really anything else dangerous that looks quite like it. But make sure to identify it with a good edibles guide, and always be aware of the environment you gather from- both from an ecological and a property rights standpoint. With that said, let us go forth and feast until our enemy is vanquished!

Garlic Mustard Pesto
11⁄2 cups fresh garlic mustard leaves
1 clove garlic
1⁄4 cup pine nuts or walnuts
3⁄4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
3⁄4 cup olive oil

In a food processor, finely chop the garlic mustard leaves, garlic and nuts. Slowly mix in the cheese and olive oil. Pesto may be eaten on bread or crackers, on spaghetti or frozen in ice cube trays and stored for future use in sauces.

Enjoy!