Field Garlic: A Sustainable Alternative to Ramps – Gardenista

What is wild, green, tastes like a garlic-laced spring, and heralds a new season of foraged flavor? Did you guess ramps? Or did someone whisper, “Field garlic…?” Field garlic it is (or wild chives, or lawn chives… it has many names). And, ramp fans? Field garlic’s bulbs may be smaller than native ramps’, but its leaves are giddily aromatic, bountiful, and easy to use and to preserve. And then there is the S-word: Sustainability. Weedy field garlic is the more sustainable of the two wild onions. It’s time for field garlic to be heralded at market with the same fanfare that the first ramps inspire.

Here’s why.

Photography by Marie Viljoen.

As more people are learning—and many have known for a while—ramps (Allium tricoccum and subspecies) are a relatively slow-growing native plant, distributed across the Eastern parts of the United States and Canada (similarly-named ramsons are Allium uva-ursi, native to Europe). While some wild ramp populations are healthy, and some ramp vendors do harvest and tend their own ramp habitats with care, many are vulnerable or threatened due to habitat loss and, increasingly, to commercial over-collection (and demand) for market.

(Necessary digression: There is an ideal method to collect ramp bulbs—just the most mature bulb in a clump, sliced above the root—yet few professional foragers practice it because it’s time-consuming. Better yet, only ramp leaves should brought to market; this is how ramsons are sold in Europe. Read more about the ramp issue, and how to cultivate them in our 2022 ramp story.)

Not many people appreciate that field garlic—Allium vineale, an introduced weed native to Europe— packs approximately the same punch as ramps in terms of flavor. But a few prescient farmers’ market vendors are beginning to sell field garlic. When you place a price tag on a plant previously taken for granted, or dismissed, it suddenly becomes very interesting and desirable.

Field garlic is almost indistinguishable from chives. Its clumps of cylindrical green leaves begin to appear as autumn shortens days and brings colder nights. It persists through winter, before growing taller and very lush as spring progresses. Peak field garlic season is early to mid-spring. The plants grow in the sunshine of deciduous woods, in open fields, and in lawns. They  disappear (like ramps) into summer dormancy after sending up tall, tiny flower heads, like miniature ornamental alliums on a really bad hair day.

Field garlic can be cultivated, too, if foraging for the plant is unappealing. Growing the plants in a kitchen garden in the same way as chives makes for easy access to their more-strongly-flavored leaves and bulbs. I find it hard to feel guilty about growing a plant condemned as a weed, since in this case it tastes wonderful, and can hardly escape the confines of a bed (unlike invasive plants that are dispersed via fruits or wind-blown seeds).  And whose herb garden is stuffed with native plants, anyway? How a plant is perceived is everything.

To cultivate your own, transplant some field garlic from where you find it growing opportunistically. Grown in good soil in high shade or full sun, the plants will thrive.