It's not like I wasn't warned. Even so, I ignored all the signs, and now we're in a bit of a fix.

A few months ago, my master gardener mother-in-law pointed out some invasive undergrowth in our back yard. She's often educating us on important botanical things, and as we often do, my husband and I listened politely and then forgot all about it.

Then as spring sprung a few weeks ago, I toured our lot, looking hopefully for sprouts. I noticed more growth than usual in the back space under our black walnut tree. This is a space where I've planted multiple different ground covers with little success. Very little grows well under that tree, but last year, every perennial I had planted over the years seemed to spread like wildfire.

It might help to know that I grew up in the New Mexico desert, so anything that grows on its own feels like success to me. I secretly enjoyed the lush green jungle emerging under that back tree.

Fast forward to mid-April. Edward Vielmetti, AnnArbor.com's lead blogger and guru of random knowledge, was discussing various ways to eradicate an invasive weed called garlic mustard. He even acquired a book of recipes to eat the stuff and wrote a post encouraging folks to "Eat Garlic Mustard for Earth Day."

I went home and walked around my yard again, and it suddenly struck me. That lovely ground cover? You guessed it. I had let the evil menace, garlic mustard, take over my property. It was under that tree. It was sprinkled in the grass. It covered the creek bank. And it had leapt all over the place, mocking me everywhere I looked.

So I deployed my best weapons for un-fun chores: child labor and a couple of bucks. It's a pretty easy weed to pull, as far as weeds go. We've had fun family nights in the weed pile. We've tried the "bet you can't fill up this bag before I can" challenge. We might even invent the Garlic Mustard Olympics. The whole family is determined to wipe out this baby. It may take a few years, so there are plenty of good times ahead of us.

If you're like me, you might want to check your jungles to see if you're hosting this somewhat pretty but sneaky evil weed. If you don't have any at your place but feel like you're missing out on all the fun, you too can tackle this invasion at the 11th Annual Garlic Mustard Weed-Out Day and Barbeque in many Ann Arbor parks on Saturday, May 1 from 10 am-1 pm.

For more information on garlic mustard, read this post by Ed Vielmetti.

Pam Stout coordinates Home & Garden and Faith coverage for AnnArbor.com. She can be reached at pamstout@annarbor.com.