The rainclouds have cleared and sunlight spills through the hardwood canopy, illuminating acres of verdant ramps. Biting into a raw ramp leaf, I am hit with a potent wild flavor that commands my attention and summons seasonal memories.

Our family of four is back in a familiar hardwood forest, adrift in a sea of ramps. While we expected early season conditions, we have found the patch in peak form, with dense clumps of enormous, glossy leaves. Eliana, who has recently acquired a taste for this exquisitely wild Allium, carefully picks a selection of leaves for her basket. Little Noemi – now a hiker in her own right – holds a pungent ramp specimen to her nose, a curious look on her face.

As I walked the woods today with family and friends, spring was everywhere. Northern Vermont’s soils, frozen five feet deep in March, are bursting with new growth. Thousands of trout lilies poked out of the saturated soil. Trilliums, already bearing white buds, brushed up against blue cohosh and tangy wood sorrel.

We always enjoy receiving notes from blog readers, workshop participants and fellow mushroom enthusiasts. When local Vermont photographer Monica Donovan contacted us earlier this year asking if she could accompany us on a foray for a personal wildcrafting photography project, we gladly welcomed her along.

Morels are on the move, and ramp season is ramping up! The foraging season is upon us, and the landscape is bursting with new life. Even up here in northern Vermont, the snowpack is receding as spring ephemerals delight in the sunlight piercing through the leafless canopy.

Maybe it is just because I have been in ramp heaven throughout the past three weeks, finding vast caches of wild leeks (Allium tricoccum) on our forays and loving ever minute of it. Or perhaps it is because I grew up in a household where every meal began with a head of garlic, and the unmistakably garlicky scent and flavor of the ramp satisfies my life-long love affair with this pungent allium. The bottom line is that I just can't get enough of ramps, and these days they seem to be showing up on the table for breakfast, lunch and dinner. From lightly sautéing ramps in a tad of olive oil, salt and pepper, to featuring them in omelets, soufflés, quiches, sandwiches, risottos, burritos, soups, and pasta dishes, it is beginning to seem that there isn’t anything that doesn’t go well with ramps.

As my anticipation of morels begins to grow unbearable, I have found a welcome diversion in ramps (Allium tricoccum). On March 29 I reported seeing ramps beginning to pop through the leaves and uncurl, their vivid green hue contrasting sharply with the brown forest floor. On Tuesday, three weeks later, I returned to the same spot to find a sweeping carpet of nearly mature, densely spaced ramps, as well as several smaller satellite colonies. That very night, they were the karpas, or spring greens, on the Passover Seder plate.