Hi Jafar,

I'm glad the earlier orders worked out well for you!

By "aiding in nutrient cycling" I was referring to Dave Jacke's discussion of spring ephemerals in Edible Forest Gardens. By leafing out and actively absorbing nutrients in late winter/early spring, while the deciduous canopy is still dormant, spring ephemerals capture some of the nutrients near the soil surface from decaying organic matter, incorporating those nutrients into their leaves. When the ephemerals' leaves die back in the summer, those nutrients are made available again at the soil surface for the canopy or other understory plants to use.

This is especially valuable in our region, where the rainy season coinciding with deciduous dormancy means we lose lots of nutrients to leaching over the winter. A combination of spring ephemerals, deeply taprooted dynamic accumulator plants, and of course high organic matter content & abundant soil life help mimimize leaching losses. (I also assume, though I don't recall seeing it mentioned anywhere, that evergreens as either canopy or understory are somewhat active through the rainy season and also capture nutrients before they leach away.)

Thanks for the link with further info on ramps; I hadn't come across that one and it has some good info. It's good to know that pine bark mulch may not be appropriate for ramps...it'll be interesting to see how they do in our yard, mulched heavily a year ago with mixed chips & leaves (conifers and deciduous) & other organic matter. As the food forest develops we'll transition to a natural leaf-mulch environment, but obviously that'll be some years down the line. But maybe next fall we'll focus on getting leaves from neighbors to use as mulch around ramps etc.

I'm not sure how many ramps we'll use...partly it'll depend on how close to 1000 we get with orders from other people, as we might wind up taking up whatever slack there is. We can plant some here and some at another food forest site we're planting. Aside from the 1000 bulk order, the Ramp Farm sells bundles of 36, so I assume that's a good number to get a patch going. We might try 3 or 4 patches under 3 or 4 trees, so using 100-150 ourselves.

Let me know if you have any other questions!

Norris

PS Here's a list of other spring ephemerals on my "try them out" list. All have edible uses; there are many other ornamental bulbs which have the nutrient cycling value but aren't exciting to me since they don't have other directly useful functions.

Claytonia sp. (leaves and roots edible)
Erythronium sp. (some native to the region, edible roots)
Ramsons (Allium ursinum, similar to ramps)
Camassia sp. (native to the region, edible roots)
Trillium grandiflorum, White trillium (edible greens, medicinal use)
Triteleia grandiflora, blue dicks or Wild hyacinth (edible root)
Triteleia sp.
Brodiaea sp.
Dichelostemma pulchellum, Wild hyacinth (edible root)

[quote="jadeforrest":vaz60z2q]Norris:

What was your experience with ramps here? Did you end up ordering a lot of them? I've been fascinated with the idea of growing ramps since I first read about them in either the perennial vegetables book or the Edible Forest Gardens book(s). I'm curious what your experience was here in the northwest.[/quote:vaz60z2q]

Hey Jade,

I planted most of my ramps in the chicken free range area, and gave them inadequate protection, not yet understanding how much destructive scratching the fluffy girls inflict on everything in their path. I planted a few more in a raspberry patch in the front yard, and they haven't really taken off.

Our neighbor planted a patch in a dedicated shady spot under a black walnut and they're filling in pretty well, but slowly. They did set some seed this year, so must be happy enough! I haven't heard from anyone else who participated in the wholesale order...

I think they're definitely worth a try, but might need a little more care to establish a healthy patch than I have them.

Hope that helps,
Norris