(upbeat twangy music) - What we have here and it's hard to see is wild meadow garlic or prairie garlic, a scrumptious edible.

The whole plant is edible and garlic, right?

You use it with everything and anything from the wild you're getting, it might be smaller in size but it is so rich in that garlic flavor.

So wild meadow garlic or prairie garlic, it is native to our prairie lands here in Minnesota.

Obviously it's threatened, like so many plants due to habitat loss.

So I am all about the sustainable harvest of anything from the wild and especially our native plant species.

So wild meadow garlic is one of the first things to pop up in the spring.

And then by early to mid-June, that's kind of a good harvest time for it and it's easier to spot than it is now because all the other grasses aren't so tall around it yet.

Today, like I said, it's a little harder to spot and we are a little bit past prime, you know, harvesting season.

But it's also a good time in that it's gone to seed so we can scatter that seed back down.

And again, back to the sustainable harvest.

I never, ever harvest all from the same area.

Stagger that harvest.

And then I also cut the root tips off and place that back in the ground.

Here we have the dried seed head and normally the stem would be green and that is, like I said, the whole plant is edible.

And so here you get all the little seeds and we are going to, and normally, during harvesting time or prime harvesting time, and then I just like to scatter that.

And so we, when we dig these up, we are as least invasive as what we can possibly be to the soil.

I don't dig a big giant hole and yank everything out.

I just loosen the soil right underneath where the bulb is going to be.

This is a really great example.

So for ID purposes, well number one, the smell of wild garlic is unmistakable.

So you're gonna get a very big dose of garlic.

And then, well even right now, as the stem, 'cause the stem is normally just a vibrant, bright green, again, you'll have the new seeds on top and then that opens up and then they'll flower.

So you have little white flowers.

And they don't all flower but, more often than not, the ones I find are flowered.

So that's how to spot them a little bit easier.

And again, that's May and early June.

And then already we're only into July and you can see they've gone to seed.

And so we're just gonna leave those here and scatter them.

And then the bulb, (Nicole exhales) that's a good garlic smell.

Earthy garlic.

So what I'm gonna do, ID purposes, you can see it's got kind of this little meshy netting, I guess, around it for lack of any better words to describe this.

And so that's a telltale IDing characteristic that you do in fact have wild garlic aside from of course that wonderful smell.

And then sustainable harvest, I am going to cut the root tendrils off and I am gonna place that right back into the ground from where it came.

And then I, again, leave no trace.

And so I'm gonna put the ground back or the soil back as best as I can.

And then you can bring this delightful little bulb of garlic, it's a little bit different, right, than our commercial garlic, but it packs a wonderful punch and a little goes a very long way.

But I like to dry these, the whole entire plant.

And then I will grind it up into a garlic powder or of course, fresh, right?

Any dishes that you would use garlic in.

So there you have it.

Prairie Meadow Wild Garlic.

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