u/pastrypirates

Garlic mustard is a highly invasive plant. It is not native to the Americas and it quickly takes over the understory of forests, displacing native plants. It is in flower & starting to make seeds right now, making it very easy to identify and easy to pull. It's tall enough that most people can pull larger plants without bending down, and the roots are quite shallow. If you pull it, it should be bagged and thrown away in the trash. Since it is in seed, if left on the ground, the seeds will continue to mature and will spread.

It is edible if it hasn't been sprayed with herbicides! It has a strong garlicky taste. If you crush a leaf, you will be able to smell why the word "garlic" is in the name.

If you don't know what garlic mustard looks like in real life, the app "seek" does a decent job of identifying it. If you want to help me attempt to control garlic mustard & other invasive plants (Japanese knotweed, porcelainberry) in our local parks, let me know.

https://fingerlakesinvasives.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/USDA-Invasive-Species-Field-Guide.pdf

How does one fix a lilac festival?

I hate the security at the entrances. The lines this year - particularly the first weekend, before they opened additional entrances - were absurdly long. I get it, one doesn’t want weapons in the festival, but 1) the lines were so long, and did not move, that if somebody wanted to cause bodily harm to one or many other people, they could simply do that in the line, 2) during the “big fight” a few years ago that gets put forward as the reason for all the increased security, the kids were armed with rocks. I am pretty sure they did not bring the rocks with them in their bags. I am pretty sure there are still plenty of rocks available in the park. Especially near the new (and ugly) 9/11 memorial, which is a few hundred feet away from the already-existing war on terror memorial.

Are we concerned about stampeding inside if there is a fight? Maybe we should take down the fencing so folks can get out.

Are we concerned about overcrowding? Maybe don’t cluster everything in one small area, or decrease the number of vendors.

Why do we erect a temporary stage every year when a couple of blocks away - in the same park - there is a permanent stage that sits mostly abandoned?

So many questions.

For whatever it’s worth, I live near the festival. I am on one of the side streets where the lines of cops pushed out the young folks who wouldn’t leave the festival a few years ago. I am very familiar with why the festival felt the need to turn entering the park into a piece of security theater.

Garlic mustard - time to pull!

Hot take? Lilac festival needs less security + less stuff.