Two Words: Garlic Mustard

The title of this post aptly describes what my senior project has been like for the past three days. To begin, I feel as though I should quickly describe what the Mustard Seed plant is, and why it's important for our first few days. Garlic Mustard is basically just an herb that is native to Europe, but was introduced in the Midwest by early settlers. Garlic Mustard is an invasive species that is rapidly displacing native woodland wildflowers and plants, and partly responsible for the endangerment of a type of butterfly West Virginia . For Julia, Sara, and my first day we sat through some meetings and talked with some of the staff at the Western Reserve Land Conservancy. After that, we went down to Snake Hill Farm, which is a huge 1,000 acre property that the WRLC looks after. Some staff gave us a look around the gorgeous area and  taught about some of the local plant life. We walked down to an open field along the Chagrin River where we spent about an hour and a half picking Garlic Mustard. The whole field was covered in the invasive  herb and while the whole crew managed to collect 18 whole trash bags worth of Garlic Mustard, they didn't even collect it all.

On our second day, we mainly just sat through a lot of meetings to get more acquainted with where we were going to be working for the next month. We learned  about stewardship projects like scanning, invasives, and monitoring. We met with the an employee for an overview in marketing and social media, and to discuss some projects that we could work on. And to finish the day, we met with other employees of the WRLC that talked to us about GIS (geographic information system) and how funding works for the non-profit organization. 

On day three, we were taken out to another park that the WRLC looks after. At the park, we once again picked some Garlic Mustard and filled countless bags. We spent our entire day there just picking Garlic Mustard. While that sounds pretty boring, it can be fun when you're working with your friends. But don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure that I've seen enough Garlic Mustard to last me a lifetime.