Wild Ramps

I know it’s pretty early, but I’ve been super excited to write about this plant since I first started writing the newsletter.

I apologize for the lack of plant-related articles lately, but I tend to do more general concept articles in the wintertime since there’s less to forage for.

That said, we’re going to talk about one of my favorite spring eats, the wild ramp (also called wild leeks). Let’s have a look!

Scientific Name: Allium tricoccum

Preferred Habitat: Moist old-growth mixed hardwood forests. I find them most often in forests with seasonal creeks along the hillsides. Common plants often sighted nearby include: trillium, trout lily, bloodroot, wild violets, maple, oak, and marsh marigold.

Edible Parts: The leaves, stems, and bulblets (although I typically avoid the bulb, I explain that below).

Distribution: Ramps are found in most of the eastern half of North America from Canada to Georgia however, they prefer a specific habitat.

Harvest Season: Early spring (around mid-late April for me) There is a fairly short harvest window of about 2-3 weeks so don’t miss it!

Key Identifiers: Large tulip-like leaves with a reddish vein going down to pinkish stems. The easiest way to tell is by tearing a leaf and smelling it. If it smells like onion/garlic then it is Allium tricoccum.

Toxic Look-Alikes: In my region we do have one look-alike that I know of: Lily of The Valley. This plant is toxic, however it does not have the pink stems and it doesn’t smell like onion or garlic. It also tends to have small white flowers in the spring whereas ramps do NOT. Once you see wild ramps in person for the first time, it will be very easy to spot them.

Nutrition: (Per half cup)

• 16 Calories

• 4g of Carbs

• Vitamin A (beta-carotene)

• Good selenium content

• Good source of chromium

• High vitamin K

• Good allicin content (which may lower blood sugar levels)

Additionally, ramps like onions can help fight infections, promote better digestion, helps protect your body against certain cancers, reduce inflammation, and promote heart health.

Before we go too much farther, I need to mention a few things about good practices with ramps:

• Because they take a long time to grow, they are very prone to over-harvesting.

• Try to take only one good leaf from each plant rather than all of the leaves from a single plant. This allows the ramp to store energy for the next growing season and continue to put out large leaves in the future.

• On a lot of public land picking ramps is prohibited. The best way to get them is to find privately-owned land and get permission to pick them there.

That leads me to my first main point.

Growth Habits

Ramps are pretty slow growers. The time a seed is planted to the time it’s mature enough to harvest from, can take anywhere from 8-10 years.

That’s a long time.

All that to say, if you dig up the bulb of the plant when you forage for them, it will take almost a decade to replenish that plant. This is why I prefer to only take the green leaves and leave the bulbs in the soil.

The bulbs are good mind you, but the leaves are just as good in my opinion and there’s very little point in reducing the population if it takes that long to get more. I can’t afford to make that kind of a sacrifice personally.

That said, go ahead and plant seeds later in the summer as well if you get a chance! The more the merrier.

Uses

Ramps are rather unique as far as what you can do with them. I’ve made ramp butter (blend ramps and butter in a food processor) which is excellent. I’ve also thrown them in with eggs, put them in stir fries, and had them cut fresh on sandwiches.

The flavor is like a mix between a sweet onion, a scallion, and garlic. Rather hard to describe, but very delicious!

Because of this they tend to pair well with creamy flavors (like cheeses, cream cheese, dressings, and butter) they also pair well with other spring edibles like asparagus, morel mushrooms, fiddleheads, and more.

My personal favorite thing to do is to make them into a spring soup that includes some kind of mushroom (I like king oyster and maitake) some kind of broth, meat, scrambled egg, ramps, and whatever other vegetable I happen to want in it at the time.

NOTE: Ramps don’t dehydrate well. I have tried and they just turn very bland and leafy with not even a hint of their normal flavor. I’d like to try storing them in oil to see if that helps retain the flavor better, but otherwise mixing them into butter or cream cheese then freezing them will be your best bet.

Your next thought is probably “how do I grow these?” well you’ll be happy to know that you actually can grow wild ramps, it just takes a little bit of prior knowledge.

Some basic tips:

• Ramps grow very slowly as previously mentioned, so be patient. It may take up to a year or so just for the seeds to sprout. It IS possible to grow them from bulbs rather than seeds, which should cut the growing time in half.

• Ramps grow in the understory of mature forests, so they’re used to dappled sunlight NOT full sun! These might be a great option for shady parts of the yard or garden.

• If planting as seeds, start them in mid-late summer. If growing from bulbs, anytime between early winter and early spring should be fine.

• Leaf mold and black leaf mulch make the best composts for ramps.

• They prefer neutral soil (not too acidic, not too basic)

• You shouldn’t need to fertilize ramps very much if the soil is high in organic matter. If you have particularly poor soil, you may need to try amending with calcium and magnesium.

Finally, here are some places to purchase ramps from:

Seeds

The Experimental Farm Network

Everwilde Farms

Bulbs/Plants

Gates Hill Farm

Prairie Moon Nursery

Unfortunately, there are no known varieties of ramp that I can find. As you can imagine this is likely because they take so long to grow that creating a new variety would likely take most of a person’s life. (You could be the first though!)

Let me know what you think if you try ramps this spring!

I may have ramp seeds (as well as other wild seeds) available later this summer, so stay tuned for that!

EDIT: Samuel Thayer (a world renown forager) has just done a video on the proper harvesting of ramps, and I think it's very sensible. You can watch it here. I consider this to be a great mindset and my perspective has shifted slightly!

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