ramps ( allium tricoccum )

according to north carolina state university horticultural information leaflet #133, "ramps grow naturally under a forest canopy."...well the twenty odd trees in my suburban backyard should provide a credible simulation...i went out back this morning and weeded and raked the bed farthest to the east...added two hundred pounds of composted manure, turned it in to a depth of twelve inches, and worked it with a warren hoe ( absolutely my new favorite gardening tool...i have all but abandoned three prong cultivators since this type of hoe is so much more effective at loosening soil and breaking it up...for me anyway ) i planted twenty-nine seeds around the bed...these are perennials and like most perennials they will eventually colonize the entire bed in a few years..."the seed requires a warm, moist period to break root dormancy and a subsequent cold period to break shoot dormancy."...the seeds call eighty degrees warm so hopefully there will be enough warm weather yet to start the process...if not the seeds may not germinate until 2014...like all the rest of what i am doing this is a long-term project...the seeds need a stable and constant level of moisture so after i planted them i mulched the bed with the straw from my winter wheat...it has been in a pile quietly beginning to rot so it will serve as both mulch and compost...and this autumn i can fill the bed with leaves ( or just let the leaves that fall form the trees be ) and then wait until spring to see where we stand...ramps are native to northwest indiana so they fit in with my attempts to plant native perennials to measure their productivity, further divorce myself form industrial food and see how they behave as the climate gets weirder...i have cowpeas growing tin the next bed over and will be planting winter wheat there in late september or early october...that bed will host the inland sea oats in the spring ( another shade loving perennial )...i'm off to campus now to check on the gardens there and see if there have been any more critter issues...between my wheat and jerusalem artichokes ( starlings and field mice respectively ) and the squirrels suspect in the eggplant heist... there has been a bit more predation this season than in the past..i'd like to get that under a bit more control...there is no daisy the cat patrolling there.