Foraging for wild ramps (wild garlic) in the woods isn’t always legal depending on where you live, and it can be a bit of a gamble. Honestly, it’s much easier to just grow your own right in your backyard! To get a lush, flavorful harvest, you just need to make sure you’re meeting a few of its favorite requirements for light and soil.
The Best Spot
Ramps absolutely love partial shade. This is especially important during the spring when they are busy growing leaves and flowers. Once they finish blooming, they don’t mind a bit more shade. Whatever you do, avoid planting them in full sun—they’ll end up looking pretty sad or might even die off completely if the summer gets too dry.
The perfect “sweet spot” is under deciduous trees or near hedges that drop their leaves. This setup is great because the plants get plenty of spring sunlight before the trees leaf out, and then they’re protected by a cool, shady canopy during the heat of the summer.
Soil Secrets
If you look at where ramps grow naturally, the soil is always rich in organic matter and full of nutrients. When planting your own, try to keep the soil consistently moist. If your soil dries out fast, you’re going to be spending a lot of time with the garden hose!
Even though they are woodland plants, ramps aren’t fans of acidic soil. In the wild, you’ll mostly find them in floodplain forests where the pH level is neutral to only slightly acidic.
Seeds or Starts?
Ramps have become so popular lately that you can find them in a few different forms at the nursery. You can start from scratch with seeds or buy established young plants. If you’ve got a bit of patience, growing them from seed is actually pretty successful.
When sowing seeds, just give them a very light dusting of soil—don’t bury them too deep. You don’t even need fancy seed-starting mix; you can scatter them right where you want them to grow permanently.
If you’re looking for faster results, buying potted plants is the way to go. Whether you choose seeds or plants, you’re getting the original wild species rather than a hybrid. Planting is super straightforward: just prep the area with some compost or nutrient-rich soil, and you’re good to go.
Easy Maintenance
Once your ramps are settled in the right spot, they’re incredibly low-maintenance. My best advice? Try to avoid transplanting your ramps once they’re established. They need time to recover after being moved. Only thin them out or move them if the patch gets so crowded that they don’t have room to spread anymore.
During those hot summer months, keep the area watered even after the leaves have died back and the bulbs are dormant. This keeps the bulbs from drying out so they can come back even stronger next spring.
In the fall, I like to toss a layer of shredded leaves over the patch as mulch. As the leaves break down over the winter, they provide natural fertilizer and build up that rich humus ramps love. Plus, it helps cover any dropped seeds, giving them a head start on germinating when spring rolls around again!
