And Away Goes the Mustard Garlic
Holliston Girl Scout Troop 75127 is busy working towards earning their bronze award. After researching several ideas, we chose a project to help pull the garlic mustard, an invasive plant, along the Rail Trail from Blair Square to Exchange Street. On Saturday, April 23, 2016, the troop set up a booth at Blair Square and talked to people walking and biking on the trail letting them know about our service project, soliciting volunteers for the pull and educating our public about this invasive plant.
The girls were back again this weekend and spent four hours on 4/30/2016 pulling. We were joined by 8 volunteers in addition to five girl scouts and their two leaders and by 11 am we had 28 bags full! We continued to pull until 1 pm and exceeded our goal to get to Exchange Street and did further along the trail. About 40 bags full in total!
This project will continue as we move forward with building a fairy house to be placed on the Rail Trail along with signage that will include a list of invasive plants and a story created by our troop that hopes to educate the public in a fun, creative way about the dangers of invasive plants on the trail and in your yard.
Oh, and if you are walking along the trail, there is a cat that lives near Blair Square and apparently keeps a close eye on the happenings in the area. Well, the girls named it Ketchup (because we all know that mustard and ketchup go together) and the cat is our honorary mascot! It seems that Ketchup directed the girls to the garlic mustard when we arrived and stayed around all morning to supervise!
Thank you Girl Scouts! And good job on recognizing a nasty invasive. As is typical of invasive, these plants bloom early, often, and long, have a lot of seeds. This one particularly poison the ground so other plant species cannot live in the same space. It is considered invasive in Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, 19 other states, and Massachusetts. Great job ladies on stamping out this bad plant.
Karen Fung | 2016-05-02 18:20:35
Thank you very much Troop 75127! Holliston in Bloom so appreciates all of your hard work! Our trail is better because of you! Thanks! Kathy Shore
Kathy Shore | 2016-05-02 09:16:53
Sad news. Mustard Garlic is bee food especcially because it flowers early when little else is in bloom.
Barbara Peatie | 2016-05-02 05:32:49
Excellent job Troop 75127!!!!
Melissa Beers | 2016-05-02 04:46:06
Wonderful!! Thank you so much. I am delighted that the girls are learning about invasives and how bad they are for our woodlands. Great job - Scouts, leaders and others!
Mary Greendale | 2016-05-02 04:40:27
Great job, Troop 75127! That is an impressive amount of garlic mustard you pulled. Thank you.
Cherry Fenton | 2016-05-02 04:10:29