Paddock Woods Saturday May 24
A significant garlic mustard population remained from our last visit to Paddock, and we continued to pick and bag it. It has to be the wet spring, these plants are doing far too well this time around. In places you can pick for several minutes without taking more than a few small steps. I was happy to see Joe pick a nearby spot for a compost pile as we all made frequent trips to it.
It's uncommon at this point to see flowers on the plants, though the seeds didn't appear to be ripe yet. Perhaps by Saturday, when we return for another assault, they'll be farther along. It's tougher to gather at that point because you don't want any seed shaking loose, and important to use a bag with no holes so you don't lay down a line of seed in transit to the compost heap.
Our Sunday at Swallow Cliff was supposed to be more of the same, but a weather front that arrived right at 9:00 am forced a cancellation. Almost every restoration day I've led or co-led in recent months has come with a possibility of rain, and two have been cancelled in May alone.
After several springs of mild-to-moderate drought a damper spring season is quite welcome, and if it's a long-term pattern that means more snow next winter, all the better.
A significant garlic mustard population remained from our last visit to Paddock, and we continued to pick and bag it. It has to be the wet spring, these plants are doing far too well this time around. In places you can pick for several minutes without taking more than a few small steps. I was happy to see Joe pick a nearby spot for a compost pile as we all made frequent trips to it.
It's uncommon at this point to see flowers on the plants, though the seeds didn't appear to be ripe yet. Perhaps by Saturday, when we return for another assault, they'll be farther along. It's tougher to gather at that point because you don't want any seed shaking loose, and important to use a bag with no holes so you don't lay down a line of seed in transit to the compost heap.
Our Sunday at Swallow Cliff was supposed to be more of the same, but a weather front that arrived right at 9:00 am forced a cancellation. Almost every restoration day I've led or co-led in recent months has come with a possibility of rain, and two have been cancelled in May alone.
After several springs of mild-to-moderate drought a damper spring season is quite welcome, and if it's a long-term pattern that means more snow next winter, all the better.
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