Yes, it is almost time for Ramps!!!

Last year at this time, we were having a heat wave -- weather in the 80's -- and we had our first Ramps by March 8.  Almost every other year, we get out first Ramps between the 20th and 25th of March -- and it is likely to be about that time this year.

We will know it is Spring for sure when we get our first ramps in, and our entire warehouse (and offices) smell of ramps  --We just can't wait.

There are some interesting stories about Ramps -- including the legend that the City of Chicago is named after a large patch of Wild Leeks (Ramps)

Chicago   The city of Chicago took is name from a dense growth of ramps near Lake Michigan in Illinois in the 17th century, after the area was described by 17th-century explorer Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, and explained by his comrade, the naturalist and diarist Henri Joutel.^[2] The plant called shikaakwa (chicagou) in the language of native tribes was once thought to be Allium cernuum, the nodding wild onion, but research in the early 1990s showed the correct plant was the ramp.^[2][4]

                                                                                  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allium_tricoccum

Soon throughout Appalachia, there will be Ramp Festivals, celebrating the first edible plant to arrive in Spring.  Among them are:

Richwood Ramp Festival   http://www.richwooders.com/ramp/ramps.htm

Flag Pond Ramp Festival  http://www.flagpond.com/festival/ramp/fest.htm

Send us your comments, and we will publish your Ramp Festival too!!