Sustainability Practices

Sustainable ramp production is our top priority. We accomplish this through limited harvesting of whole plants and high levels of seed sowing. You can help! You can also order seeds which are the best (though patience is required) way to get a large patch of your own established.

In our partnerships with landowners, we commit to harvesting no more than 10% of the ramps in each harvest area in a given year. Furthermore, we commit to replanting at least 10% of all seeds gathered back into the same property. This may not sound like much, but ramps seeds are very poor at growing to maturity on their own. Glen Facemire notes in his book Having Your Ramps and Eating Them Too that only 5% of seeds reach maturity on their own. They have a hard time finding their way beneath the leaf litter to make contact with the soil. We sow the seeds beneath the leaf litter so that 100% of them have soil contact.

10% is just a minimum. We want our partners to have large, widespread ramp populations growing throughout their woods so seeds are harvested and strategically sown on other parts of each property where site conditions are favorable to start new patches or expand existing small patches. We'd love to help you get started in growing your own ramp patch, from seed or with starter bulbs!