Garlic Mustard

Garlic Mustard is one of Kingston's more-than-human neighbours. They were first recorded in Kingston in 1898, likely brought to North America as a food and medicine plant. Now they're one of Kingston's Prohibited Plants. Their seeds travel on boots, tires, and fur, so patches appear along trails, fence lines, ditches, and gardens. These kin cards are an invitation to get to know them and to read what their presence is telling you.

Garlic Mustard kin card

Some of their common names in Europe — Sauce Alone and Poor Man’s Mustard — hint at their long relationship with humans. Foragers still harvest their leaves in spring for pesto and salads, seeds as a spice, and roots as a condiment.

📥 Download Garlic Mustard Kin Card (PDF, 116KB)

Garlic Mustard at the planning table

What might we learn from what made Garlic Mustard abundant? If we remove Garlic Mustard, who could we plant in their place? Each place you find Garlic Mustard has its own possibilities.

📥 Download Garlic Mustard at the planning table (PDF, 114KB)

Get to know Garlic Mustard. Return through the seasons. Record what you notice on iNaturalist.

Notice: Learn their calendar. Their first-year rosettes stay green under the snow. In May, second-year plants send up stalks of tiny, four-petalled flowers, and small bees visit. By June, green seedpods form. If the pods ripen, each plant drops hundreds of seeds.

Act: Crush a leaf in spring. If you smell garlic, you've found them. Remove them and replant immediately or cover the soil with a layer of arborist woodchips at least 5 cm thick. The homeowner handout covers identification, removal, and replanting. Restore the diversity of our woodland floor with a pocket meadow. Plant a woodland edge or forest floor pocket meadow.

Know a neighbour with Garlic Mustard? Print the homeowner handout and share it with them.

📥 Download Garlic Mustard handout (PDF, 140KB)

Learn more from the Invasive Species Centre. To read why Garlic Mustard may be as much a symptom of change as a cause, try Michael Anderson’s article, Is Garlic Mustard an Invader or an Opportunist? For the stories we tell about them, try Adrianna Michell’s essay, Garlic Mustard Assemblages: A Brief Recipe for Pesto.

Need help: Little Forests Kingston and 1000 Islands Master Gardeners can help you identify plants, choose the right ones for your yard, and connect with neighbours doing the same work.

Get involved: Little Forests Kingston is growing. We're looking for people who want to build relationships with the land and tend them over time. Forest Stewards, Neighbourhood Weavers, Community Scientists, Seed Keepers and more. You don't need to arrive knowing everything. Do any of these roles call to you?