around mid spring the leaves of the wild leek emerge these plants are often referred to as ramps and are considered a delicacy in the US the bulb and stem of the plant is also edible like its domesticated cousins onions and garlic during the spring I focus on harvesting the leaves rather than the bulbs as the leaves are a spring ephemeral and will disappear the bulbs continue to get bigger even after the ramps seemingly disappear around June the plant usually has two leaves sometimes three so to collect this in a non-lethal fashion I collect one leaf per plant leaving most of the plants alone while leeks are considered to be a rare plant patches of them are few and far between but when you finally encounter one you'll find hundreds if not thousands of plants when you do come across a large bunch of ramps like this it's easy to get overzealous and start harvesting all the plants but remember these plants take a long time to regenerate and expand the range so you want to harvest less than 10% of any given population other plants like the wild Trillium can often be found in the mix when I do decide to harvest the bulb I make sure to leave the root crown in the dirt so as I'm harvesting the bulb I'll break the crown off by twisting or bending the plants as I pull it out this allows the crown to regenerate the ramps resemble green onions or scallions but with thicker fuller leaves while the bulbs can be harvested in the spring the best time to harvest would be in the fall the bulbs are much thicker and larger at that point and the ramps have also released their seeds I like to plant the seeds in the hole so another bulb can grow there I think it's important to be good stewards of this wild edible and ensure its health and propagation for the future ramp leaves can also be successfully transplanted here are two that I transferred into my garden now for cooking the ramp bulb can be cut up like any other Allium like garlic or onion I like to saute the ramp leaves in butter coconut oil and they start to take on a sweeter taste after they'd been cooked I just topped this dish off for some uncooked Arab leaves and breakfast is served