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Do you see them?
Here scattered over the hillside on our farm?
Ramps!
And more ramps!
Ramps where there were no ramps before.
Ramps (Alliium tricoccum) or wild leeks are the superbly stinky April delight of Appalachia. Both the white root parts and the leafy greens are edible. Ramps are most often served fried in bacon fat with eggs and/or potatoes and served with pinto beans and cornbread, but they can be used in just about any recipe similar to how you would use onions or garlic. In recent years, ramps have become a trendy gourmet item and in some places can be quite expensive. They grow in the dark, rich woodland soil near streams or on hillsides across the Appalachian region. In West Virginia, springtime is the time of community ramp festivals and ramp dinners, roadside ramp stands, and, for the intrepid, ramp-hunting in the wild.
Last spring, I hunted ramps on our farm and came up empty-handed. Not to be deterred, I “networked” my way onto a neighboring farmer’s hillside and brought home a pungent bagful to start my own garden of ramps. I planted some after cutting off the root ends and planted others whole, bulbs and leaves attached. I chose several shady areas of a seemingly ramp-friendly hillside on our farm and deposited my ramp dreams among them.
Truthfully, I didn’t hold out a lot of hope that I’d see these ramps come up. I was sure it had to be harder than that. I was sure I’d have to plant ramps over and over and maybe they’d never take.
But– My ramps came up! Seriously, I was stunned to see them. I did it! I have my very own hillside “garden” of ramps!
I found my ramps coming up in numerous locations on the hillside where I planted them last year. (So many that it seems to have made no difference whether I cut the root ends off before planting or not–I think they all came up.) It’ll take time for these ramps to establish and spread, so I won’t be cooking with my own ramps anytime soon. Ramps multiply quickly, though. Every spring, there will be more and more. In a few years, there will be enough to harvest. I’ll have great, big, gorgeous patches of them, just like on the farm where I got my starter plants last April.
I can’t wait!
Interested in growing ramps? See more about hunting ramps, and planting them, here: Finding and Growing Ramps.
And for tips on preparing ramps, and a few recipe ideas, go here: Cooking with Wild Ramps.
Posted by Suzanne McMinn on April 13, 2009Read my column today in the Charleston Daily Mail: Old Wives’ Tales Abound for Picking Hens.
One that is sunny and happy! 
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just when you think you’ve got if covered, you’ll go out one day to see the ramps missing and a strange little chubby figure running away fast in the distance carrying a mysterious bag of green leafy things.
hehehehe.
i don’t have ramps, a farm, or a shadowy hillside, but i do have this strange onion smelling plant growing out from where i buried my kitchen scraps. man, the onion family are hardy little things aren’t they.
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I loved the photo of Coco and Morgan…it was wonderful!!!
The Retirement Chronicles
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Cool picture of the Princess and the Giant Puppy.
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Blaze said if I ate them I would be sleeping out side.
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I’m so happy your ramps are multiplying.
What do they taste like?
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I have been following your blog a bit for a while now,and when I saw your post on Ramps I was instantly transformed back in time when I was alittle girl, My dad’s side of the family is from and still lives around Romney WV and I remember my Great Uncle Jennings hunting and eating Ramps, My Grandmother would say he had eaten so many ramps that they were coming out of his skin, of course I didn’t know what that meant until later when my mom told me that uncle Jennings ate so many that when he was sweating he smelled like strong onions. I am 32 now and my Uncle Jennings and Great Grandma have left us so it was bitter sweet remembering, Thank you for the post, I am glad I remembered!!!
Dana
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