With ramp season nearly here, many West Virginians are preparing to harvest the wild, onion-like crops.
With ramp season nearly here, many West Virginians are preparing to harvest the wild, onion-like crop.
“I like to describe it between an onion and garlic, and it’s super versatile in cooking,” Amy Lovell, Monongahela National Forest educational representative, said. “It’s not something you can get all year long, which I think people really gravitate to as well.”
Guidelines for ramp collecting include only harvesting ramps from patches with more than 100 plants and only collecting around 20 percent of each patch to allow the remaining plants to mature.
When digging bulbs, use a soil fork or hand trowel so as not to disturb the roots of neighboring plants, and make sure to cover any bare soil with leaves to keep invasive plants from growing nearby.
Lovell said the act of harvesting ramps has seen an uptick in popularity in recent years. Ramps can be eaten raw, pickled or fried, or used in dishes like meatloaf and potato soup, among other uses.
“We see children these days going out with their parents and their grandparents to harvest ramps, and it’s really an intergenerational activity that happens in Appalachia,” Lovell said. “And even now, ramps are gaining a lot of popularity, even in large cities. So, in the spring, you’ll start to see them pop up on menus and restaurants in urban areas.”
Places like Monongahela National Forest have restrictions on how many ramps individuals can harvest. The maximum amount is two gallons per person, or 180 plants. Collecting the plants for commercial purposes, including reselling those originally harvested for personal use, is not allowed.
Ramp seeds and transplants, however, can be planted in a personal garden.
“They like really rich, cool moist soil under deciduous trees, so our oak trees or maple trees are birch trees,” Lovell said. “That’s where we typically find grant ramps growing. So if you can mimic those conditions in your home garden, you’re gonna have a really good harvest of ramps.”
Lovell also noted transplants mature more quickly than seeds; transplants take two to three years to mature, while seeds can take up to seven years.
Monongahela National Forest spans ten counties in eastern West Virginia, including Barbour County, Grant County, Tucker County, Randolph County, Greenbrier County, Webster County, Preston County, Nicholas County, Pendleton County, and Pocahontas County. Lovell reminds visitors that when harvesting ramps, make sure to prepare for the weather and any emergencies that could happen.
“This time of year, the weather can be really unpredictable, so we can get snowstorms still, we may get sudden thunderstorms or flash flooding,” Lovell said. “So just make sure that if you’re coming to harvest ramps from the national forest that you’re prepared with appropriate clothing and extra food, extra water, a flashlight and batteries in case you get stranded in the dark.”
West Virginia University (WVU) Extension is again sending free seeds to any West Virginian who fills out a short online survey.
West Virginia University (WVU) Extension is again sending free seeds to any West Virginian who fills out a short online survey.
The “Grow This: West Virginia Garden Challenge” is a project of the WVU Extension Family Nutrition Program that aims to teach West Virginians how to grow their own food.
Zack Harold is the program’s multimedia specialist. He said even though spring feels very far away, gardening season is just around the corner and now is the time to start planning.
“This is actually the time of year when you’ve got to start thinking about those things,” Harold said. “We’re kind of right on track. Come March, it’ll be time to start your carrots and your kale and get your pepper started indoors.”
Harold said the only two requirements to qualify for “Grow This” are to live in West Virginia and to fill out the program survey. He does caution participants to make sure they provide their full address to ensure the seeds are sent to the right places.
“The program is for everyone, but we’re hoping to create a whole new generation of gardeners who can grow their own food and serve their own community, serve their own household and fight food insecurity,” Harold said.
This year’s “Grow This” crops of purple carrots, miniature multi-colored bell peppers and red kale will bring extra color to home gardens.
“The more colors on your plate, the healthier it is,” Harold said. “And the crops that were grown this year are going to make for a really colorful plate for sure.”
Participants are also encouraged to take advantage of the Extension’s social media pages on Facebook and Instagram to share pictures of their crops and ask questions of experts.
WVU Extension Family Nutrition Program’s work is supported by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program from the USDA Food and Nutrition Service.
Editor’s note: Zack Harold also works as a Folkways reporter for the Inside Appalachia Folkways Project.
Crystal Wilson’s small garden beds and animal pens sprawl off both sides of a dirt drive on the side of a ridge south of Knoxville. She’s been gardening and tending the herbs on her forest floor in Rockford for a quarter-century.
Today, herbal remedies are experiencing a renaissance. Industry trackers reported an explosion in sales — and prices — last year. But this “new-age” trend has been a traditional source of wellness and independence in Appalachia for centuries.
Wilson grew up in Southwest Virginia learning about wild plants on long walks with her father, who was a factory worker. Her grandparents made extra money gathering plants to sell at an herb house in Marion. It dried them and sold the components to pharmacies.
“Appalachia used to be the pharmacy of the United States,” she said. “We would harvest the plants here, they’d go to compounding pharmacies and that would make medicine. So folks could gather things and take them to sell them to make extra money. That’s always been part of who we are here. We just forgot it.”
Wilson didn’t forget. Until the COVID-19 pandemic, Wilson sold remedies from her farm and at a farmer’s market, mostly to women.
She learned the skills from not only her family, but Appalachian women she taught to read during her first job after college.
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Crystal Wilson picks elderberry blossoms from bushes growing at her farm in Rockford. She calls elderberry the gateway to herbal remedies for many people, as elderberry syrup has gained mainstream popularity.
“They were all working women,” she said. “It’s not as bad in Appalachia as it was 30 years ago, but (illiteracy) was a real thing — you know, they’d have someone else sign their checks for them at the grocery store. So I taught them — and through that, they taught me.”
As a writing exercise, the women wrote down home remedies they knew. Wilson took those on a literacy exchange program to the Bronx and shared them. The Puerto Rican and Dominican women there wrote down their own. Wilson was struck by the similarities in folk wisdom among women from different environments and cultures.
Historically, women have turned to herbs when they needed help with health concerns like menopause and family planning, Wilson said. Many people today also use herbal remedies for several other problems of our age: sleeplessness, anxiety and depression.
“That talks about who we are as a people, and what we struggle with,” she added.
Elderberry Is The Gateway
For a lot of people, elderberry is a gateway to other traditional remedies, Wilson said. In late spring, she makes a tincture of elderberry flowers and honeysuckle steeped in vodka. She said it helps bring down an elevated temperature, whether a fever or hot flashes.
“This is what keeps me grounded to this land: Herbs have different cycles,” she said. “My year is planned around what is harvested and how it’s harvested.”
It starts with violets in the spring, then honeysuckle flowers.
“Then we’ll do leaves through the summer,” she said. “In the fall, the energy of the plant goes back down in the ground and the root, so that’s when you want to harvest the root, preferably during the waning moon.
A wandering flock of noisy, angry-sounding guinea fowl followed her as she looked for a fully flowering elderberry bush after a cool spring. Picking her way among goat and chicken pens, she scolded an escaped kid. It bleated at her, unimpressed.
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Crystal Wilson adds elderberry flowers to create a fever tincture as her guinea hens fuss around her feet.
After a hunt, Wilson broke off clusters of elderberry flowers like small lace doilies. After checking for bugs, she washed the elderberry and some honeysuckle flowers in a metal bowl full of water from one of the huge square rain barrels built onto platforms at the corners of her house.
That’s an example of how Wilson values what modern science has to teach about conservation, climate change and medicine. She’s getting advice this summer from the non-profit Appalachian Sustainable Development, which is going to visit the farm and recommend improvements to make her woods even better for deep-forest botanical plants like goldenseal.
As a diabetic who relies on insulin, Wilson emphasizes that herbal remedies are not a substitute for modern medicine. She has even taught workshops for nurses about how to avoid interactions between herbal remedies and prescriptions.
“For a tincture, you know, it’s a plant and alcohol base,” she explained. “I usually use potato vodka because a lot of folk got wheat allergies. So now we’re going to take our potato vodka and cover this up.” She poured a full bottle of it on top of the flowers in a glass jar.
When someone buys a tincture, Wilson uses a formula based on their age and weight to personalize the dosing. She’s aware of modern challenges.
“We’ve got a lot of opioid addiction, so you know, you don’t want to give someone struggling with that an alcohol,” she said. “So I’ll use glycerin or even apple cider vinegar for someone like that.”
She sets the jar in a windowsill, and shakes it when she walks by every day. In six to eight weeks, she’ll strain it and put it in little amber dropper bottles. The dark bottle can help it last a couple of years.
“So everything is slow about this, from the plants to the medine,” Wilson said. “Nothing’s fast. There’s wisdom in that.”
Wilson says she’s concerned that the rising mainstream popularity of herbal remedies will lead to over-harvesting Appalachian forest plants, as it has with ginseng and ramps.
But she said she’s excited to see suburban enthusiasm for traditional remedies actually driving more Appalachians back to them.
“It’s so wonderful to see people (go) ‘I know that!’ — and to have that light bulb come on again,” she said.
Age-Old To “New Age”
College-educated, suburban women have helped popularize herbal remedies, which can now be found in drug and grocery stores, Wilson said. Jill Richards, a mother of six living on the outskirts of Knoxville, reflects this trend.
“I think definitely through the years there’s been more of an uptick in just regular suburban moms wanting to do things naturally,” she said.
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Jill Richards gets her daily shot of fire cider to boost the immune system at her home in West Knoxville.
Richards started making home remedies almost 25 years ago in Florida, because she didn’t want to give anything unnatural to her newborn. She learned recipes from books, her chiropractor, and other moms. The women would get together to make salves and diaper rash cream while their toddlers played.
As her kids aged, Richards came to rely on other remedies for her family — like fire cider.
On her counter is a big glass container with a spigot, the kind most of her neighbors might use to serve iced tea at a party. But hers contains a light amber liquid thick with floating white fragments and flower-like slices of pepper.
“So you take horseradish root, onions and garlic, habanero peppers, some herbs and spices and things like that, and then put them down in apple cider vinegar and let it ferment for four weeks,” she said. “I drink it every day during the winter, and I think it gets rid of anything.”
She poured some into a handy shot glass and tossed it back.
“It is very hot,” she said, wincing briefly. “But I am telling you, I don’t think anything bad could live near you if you drink that!”
Richards used to sell some of her remedies in stores. But in recent years she just sells elderberry syrup, which has gained mainstream popularity for warding off flu and colds. Some medical research seems to show it can strengthen immune response and shorten illness.
Richards puts out the word on Facebook when she cooks a batch from dried berries ordered online. (Sometimes she makes it into gummies for her kids.) She says herbal remedies are part of a holistic approach to health.
“It’s interesting to me that we call them ‘alternative,’ because this is what people used to heal for thousands of years,” said Richards, who is concerned about over-prescriptions of antibiotics making them ineffective. “This is the original medicine: plants and berries, and oils, and extracts.”
Gardening For Independence
Modern women like Richards can now learn the skills in formal classes. In the rolling fields of Clinton, Tennessee, a dozen members of a local Red Hat Society perch on stools around a bar in a greenhouse, clinking ceramic teacups. They’ve just had a workshop on herbal tea at Erin’s Meadow Herb Farm taught by farm owner Kathy Burke Mihalczo. She grew up mostly outdoors in nearby Oak Ridge, but she first learned about herbs from a co-worker at a garden center.
Mihalczo says the growing interest in herbal remedies from her customers, who mostly live in Knoxville, reflects the broader trend of wanting to know where our food and medicine comes from.
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Erin’s Meadow Herb Farm started limited individual sales of immunity-boosters like elderberry and echinacea during the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent hoarding.
That went into overdrive during the coronavirus pandemic, when more people also turned to gardening.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Erin’s Meadow started selling out of immune-boosters like dried elderberry and echinacea. Mihalczo says some of her online buyers were hoarding. She quit selling more than a bag at a time.
“I think it did make people think, especially when stores were closed and restaurants were closed… ‘If I did have an injury or an illness, what would I do if I couldn’t get to the store for store bought medications? I want to know what I could grow and use right out of my backyard if I have a stomachache, my child couldn’t sleep, we have a small burn,’” she said. “And I think people realized that they were dependent on store bought things and maybe they didn’t have to be.”
This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, a partnership with West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia and the Folklife Program of the West Virginia Humanities Council. The Folkways Reporting Project is made possible in part with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts, and culture.
To help decrease the spread of COVID-19, residents across the country, and here in West Virginia, are being asked to stay home, except to get the essentials such as food and medicine. Although the National Grocers Association assures there’s not a food shortage in the U.S., some store shelves are sparse.
As spring unfolds across the Mountain State, the pandemic is driving an influx of West Virginians back to the garden and to some of the state’s local farmers.
WVU Extension Service has seen firsthand the growing interest in planting and tending a garden. The WVU Extension Family Nutrition program runs an online gardening program called Grow This. It’s supported by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program from the USDA Food and Nutrition Service.
Interested participants fill out an online survey and get free seeds for four crops. This year the crops are microgreens, peas, tomatoes and butternut squash. The program is open to anyone in West Virginia and, in recent years, a few hundred people have participated.
“This year, within three days of posting the first post for the year, we had over 1,000 people sign up, and we now have over 5,000,” said Kristin McCartney, a public health specialist with the Extension Service.
Credit Courtesy Grow This Facebook
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In the month since the program went live, more than 25,000 people have requested seeds. McCartney said staff is working from home to fulfill the requests, targeting those most in need.
McCartney’s first post included an image of a victory garden — the war-time morale-booster that encouraged people to plant food at home. In this time of COVID-19, she said the idea of growing more food seems to have resonated with many West Virignians.
“This is the time to pull together as a community and do what we can for ourselves and other people around us,” she said. “Part of that right now is just staying home, and another part is ensuring that our food supplies are secure and people can be fed.”
Credit Courtesy Grow This Facebook
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A screenshot of the victory garden post made by Grow This.
That’s a role some of the state’s farmers are taking on, according to Fritz Boettner, who heads the Turnrow Appalachian Food Collective located in southern West Virginia. The organization serves as a food hub and helps get produce from dozens of small growers into the hands of schools, restaurants and people across central Appalachia.
Some of the biggest markets for Turnrow growers included restaurants and schools, both of which are largely closed due to the coronavirus. That sent some farmers scrambling to find buyers for truckloads of salad greens, for example.
But during this pandemic, Boettner said a new market is flourishing — regular West Virignians seeking fresh produce. Turnrow has seen record sales from individuals placing orders through their online marketplace.
He thinks it highlights the vital role small farmers play in West Virginia. West Virginia is home to about 20,000 farms, and almost all of them are considered small. Ninety-three percent are family-owned, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“We need to think about food security and our food system in West Virginia and central Appalachia will help get us through this.” he said “And I think people are wanting to invest in that.”
When Brady Walker first learned that some people go hungry, without a meal, he was four years old. And unlike most kids his age, he decided to take action.
Brady lives in Mercer County, W.Va., but he had a family friend named Ursula Candasamy, who has since passed away, in South Africa. So Brady began by collecting produce seed packets — some donated, some with his own savings — and he sent 910 packets to Ursula who distributed them to those in need.
Brady, who is now eight years old, said he is motivated to keep sending seeds because, “people won’t be hungry, and I’m helping other people, and I like helping people.”
And so began his “Sowing Seeds of Love” project. For the last four years, Brady has sent hundreds of seeds to South Africa.
He has also passed out a couple hundred seed packets to his neighbors in his own community in southern West Virginia. According to Feeding America, the largest hunger relief organization in the U.S., one in seven West Virginians struggle with hunger.
As the coronavirus pandemic has grown, more West Virginians are trying to grow a garden than in past years. According to the West Virginia University Extension Office, they have seen well over 25,000 participants in their virtual gardening program that includes a free packet of seeds. Typically, they see a few hundred.
So, with the help of his grandmother Debra Williby-Walker, this year, Brady has sent out almost 4,000 seed packets to West Virginians. As a more effective way to distribute the seeds, they sent a decorated shoe box, which Brady and his friends worked on prior to the pandemic, filled with seeds to different counties, which are then set out near places like soup kitchens and food pantries for people to pick out what they want.
“So it’s a pretty massive project,” Debra said. “He started out with just a few seeds in a shoe box and then he just kept sending them, and it started growing from there.”
Brady said he has had a lot of help from people across West Virginia who have donated seeds to his project. Others have even gotten word and donated a few seed packs from places including New York, Florida, California, Virginia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina and Canada.
Brady chose seed packets for his project over other things such as canned goods, because not only are the seeds replenishable, but he said growing one’s own garden is an important skill to learn.
He learned to garden from grandpa, or pawpee,and is growing potatoes and corn this year.
Brady added that he likes to “put my hands in the dirt” and find worms.
He said he plans to continue sending seeds for as long as his supply lasts this year and also in the years to come.
This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts, and culture.
As the number of coronavirus cases have quickly grown across the nation, including in West Virginia, leaving the house has become increasingly discouraged. In fact, the White House Coronavirus Task Force recently recommended to either not go or limit trips to the grocery store to avoid large gatherings.
And even when people do go to the store the shelves are often sparse. Although the National Grocers Association assures there’s not a food shortage in the country, some people are preparing just in case.
Amy Knicely is a career development specialist in Parkersburg, West Virginia. She has been working from home, homeschooling her kids and growing a garden.
“We don’t have a food shortage, but the lack of ability to go out whenever you want to get food, it kind of brought back some of my roots from my childhood,” she said.
Knicely grew up in rural West Virginia hunting, fishing and gardening. She said having fresh chicken eggs and snacking on deer jerky or cherry tomatoes are some of her favorite memories.
After years of not having a garden Knicely decided to tap into her Appalachian roots and harvest her own food this year. So far, she is growing broccoli, onions, summer squash and tomatoes.
Knicely said it has also been a learning opportunity for her kids.
“Even if it’s just a healthy habit of growing your own vegetables, being able to take care of yourself to some degree, you know, working hard and then reaping the benefits,” she said.
Growing a garden this year is trending in the Mountain State. Brady Walker is an 8-year-old who lives in Mercer County, and for the past four years he has been sending donated seeds to people who want to start a garden – it is part of his ‘Sowing Seeds of Love Project’ that began with him sending seeds to people in South Africa. Walker said this year he has seen more interest than ever.
Credit Debra Williby-Walker
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Brady Walker reading a book written by Ursula Candasamy based on Brady’s project “Sowing Seeds of Love.” He has been donating seeds to people in need for four years.
Typically, he gives out around 1,000 seed packets, but this year Walker is sending over 4,000 seed packets across West Virginia and South Africa. He said giving people the opportunity to grow plants that can harvest food year after year is important to him.
Walker learned to garden from his grandpa, or pawpee, and the biggest tip he has learned: “Weed it every day.”
In Hampshire County, Susan Feller, a fiber artist, is also growing a garden this year. She said it is the first time she has planted a full garden in 10 years.
“So, to me a garden, as it grows, is a teaching tool,” Feller said. “It’s confidence that life is going on.”
Confidence, Feller said, that we — West Virginia and the U.S. — will make it through the pandemic.
She is drawing on what she learned growing up, as she worked on an herb farm and her mother gardened.
“I remember, I can plant the gardens this way, I can plant the marigolds around the edge, and theoretically the deer won’t get into them,” Feller said.
And she has been foraging too, something she also learned on the herb farm. Lately Feller’s been collecting dandelions.
“My partner does all the cooking, so he cooks them down and adds some anchovies into it and it’s great,” she said. “I’m on my way out today. We’re going to pick some more.”
According to the WVU Extension Service, the next few weeks are a great time to begin seeding carrots, sweet corn, swiss chard and herbs.
This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts, and culture.
