Ramps and how you got to digging them.

[Pig Predator]

How did you get to digging ramps and have you seen more traffic on the patches you dig?

 

[NCHillbilly]

I honestly can't ever remember a time when digging ramps wasn't part of my life. I can remember digging them with my grandpa when I was about knee-high.

There probably aren't 5% of the ramps here now that there were when I was a teenager. Most of the places I used to dig are now either developed as gated communities, cleared for cowpastures, or otherwise built full of houses or posted ten ways from Sunday. The other big thing here is Mexicans digging them by the thousands of bushels every year to sell at farmer's markets and produce stands. It got so bad that the GSMNP ended their long-term policy of letting people dig small amounts for personal consumption. Ramps reproduce so slowly that it takes forever to replenish a patch that has been decimated. I have had a good patch growing on the branchbank in the back yard for a few decades.

 

[Pig Predator]

A close friend of mine took me out to a patch 6 years ago and told me about an abundance in another state and I found them. His grandfather took him to these places. The trails were faint at the time, almost like following an old game trail. One of those places are off the beaten path probably 2/3 mile and now it looks almost like someone hoed a trail and marked every other tree.

I have a couple decent spots of ramps right off the side of the road right here by the house I've found but dont hit them often in fear of being seen and them getting dug up.

 

[Pig Predator]

I've never taken anyone or told location on any of them but yeah, nc spot got hit hard. I've skipped out on my buds spots the past couple years since he passed but today i went back and it was mind boggling. Plenty of ramps and it looked like every one has been digging responsibly but there was traffic

 

[Hillbilly stalker]

My family has always done it. Mountain folks tend to be gatherers. Pick paw paws, mulberry, walnuts, black berry, cherries, Mushrooms, apples, blue berries or whatever mother nature offered. Seemed most of the women folk wore an apron with a big pocket in the front of it. All toted a small paring knife in it. Put the beans on and walk around the hillside and cut some greens. My aunt used to go "spooning" or digging mushrooms all the time, she knew what was what. Ramps or anything else eatable like that were gathered when found.

 

[NCHillbilly]

My family has always done it. Mountain folks tend to be gatherers. Pick paw paws, mulberry, walnuts, black berry, cherries, Mushrooms, apples, blue berries or whatever mother nature offered. Seemed most of the women folk wore an apron with a big pocket in the front of it. All toted a small paring knife in it. Put the beans on and walk around the hillside and cut some greens. My aunt used to go "spooning" or digging mushrooms all the time, she knew what was what. Ramps or anything else eatable like that were gathered when found.

Yep. I grew up foraging out of the woods as a way of life. My mom and grandma were both greens gatherers. They started out early in the spring with creasy greens, branch lettuce, poke sallet, stinging nettles, so-chan, crows foot, prickly lettuce, yellow dock, and a hundred others. We picked wild strawberries, wild blueberries and huckleberries, blackberries, dewberries, raspberries, elderberries, and such. In the fall, we gathered black walnuts, hickory nuts, and chinkapins. The only mushrooms my family picked and ate were morels, but I have learned a lot more types in my lifetime and gather them every year. We also always dug sang, black cohosh, mayapple, sassafras root bark, and such to sell. Grandpa paid for a lot of his land gathering and selling chestnut oak tanbark.

 

[Railroader]

My family has always done it. Mountain folks tend to be gatherers. Pick paw paws, mulberry, walnuts, black berry, cherries, Mushrooms, apples, blue berries or whatever mother nature offered. Seemed most of the women folk wore an apron with a big pocket in the front of it. All toted a small paring knife in it. Put the beans on and walk around the hillside and cut some greens. My aunt used to go "spooning" or digging mushrooms all the time, she knew what was what. Ramps or anything else eatable like that were gathered when found.

Man, you just brought back some fond memories of my Granny Liza, and my Great Aunt Oshie, who lived up a holler in Kentucky...I got in on the gathering of all kinds of stuff. One of my favorites was an apple tree of some sorts. You couldn't eat the apples, but when they got done making apple butter and cornbread or biscuits...

Hush yo mouth.

I have also seen a small likker still in operation...

And @Hillbilly stalker, don't forget the can of Navy or Honeybee in her apron with the parking knife...

I LOVED going to Kentucky.

 

[NCHillbilly]

Another thing was making spicebush and sassafras tea. We drank a lot of those.

 

[Hillbilly stalker]

Sassafras tea and Dandoline wine.

 

[35 Whelen]

In Pennsylvania we called them leeks. At the Potter County Grange every spring they had a "leek supper" for the community. I remember my great aunt picking dandelion greens, one of the first things to come up in the spring, to fix for the family. When the dandelions bloomed we picked the flowers to make dandelion wine. We also picked blackberries, wild strawberries, black and red raspberries, black walnuts, hickory nuts, and apples that grew in an abandoned orchard. Most years the apples were small and wormy or none at all, but some years they were near perfect. Never picked any mushrooms until my brother started to study which ones were edible and easy to identify, and then only with him. Fun times! Don't do much any more like that except pick a few mushrooms while scouting.

 

[Duff]

I have never heard of dandelion wine or greens until now

 

[NCHillbilly]

One of my best memories from when I was a kid is our annual ramp trips. One day in early spring, we'd load up the family and some friends, a sack of taters, and some cornmeal and head back up into the mountains. We would spend most of the day digging ramps and catching native speckled trout, then have a campfire feast that afternoon.

 

[Hillbilly stalker]

Yep...bout like these western North Carolina folks. Their good people. Good info on identifying, collecting, cleaning and cooking. Great channel for the old ways and history. This is a high country broil.

 

[greg j]

Just how far south will ramps grow? I live in Carroll county and am wondering if they grow that far south. I sure miss digging them like i use to as a kid in Michigan and later in Illinois.

 

[Pig Predator]

Just how far south will ramps grow? I live in Carroll county and am wondering if they grow that far south. I sure miss digging them like i use to as a kid in Michigan and later in Illinois.

Lowest elevation I've found them were at 2300 ft. I've never tried transplanting them. They all end up getting eat.

 

[NCHillbilly]

Even here, I seldom find them under 3,000 feet, usually in dark, shady, north-facing hollers. The official range map only shows them in Rabun, Towns, and Union counties in GA.

 

[greg j]

I know when i dug them in Michigan and Illinois it was no where near that elevation. Heck it was probably only 700-800 ft elevation above sea level. Wonder why it make a difference down here.

 

[NCHillbilly]

I know when i dug them in Michigan and Illinois it was no where near that elevation. Heck it was probably only 700-800 ft elevation above sea level. Wonder why it make a difference down here.

Same reason palmetto trees don't grow up there-because MI is several hundred miles north of here? They are a northern plant, and only survive this far south in the higher mountains. 700 feet elevation here is a deep south climate. 6,000' is like sea level in Canada.