Volunteers and interns are a huge part of what allows JCWC to do what we do, from learning about wildlife in the watershed to cleaning up streams to raising awareness of the amazing resource that is Johnson Creek. Hands-on restoration work has been a staple of our volunteer program for as long as we’ve been around, but for the past three years, we’ve done something a little different: an intern-driven weed control program! JCWC has been working hard to control garlic mustard in the watershed for a decade now, and those efforts–largely involving herbicide treatment–have substantially reduced the presence of this plant along the creek and its tributaries. This spring marked the third year in a row that this work has been done with the invaluable assistance of a dedicated crew of invasive species interns, whose diligence and hardiness have allowed us to treat this species entirely through hand-pulling! We continue to see significant year-on-year reduction in garlic mustard cover on the sites where we work; sites that used to take days to finish now take hours, and we had noticeably less treatment area this year than in any previous year. Many thanks to this year’s interns: Byron Foster, Corinne Heath, Jim Juliano, Litza Lovell, Aubrey Pelz, Joseph Savage, Jacob Savoie, Dan Schick, and Maycell Villanueva! Your efforts are critical to the health of Johnson Creek’s riparian forests.