Ramsons: the green haze of spring woodland

Walk into a damp, shaded wood in late March and you may smell it before you see it: a green, sharp, unmistakably garlicky scent drifting off the woodland floor. That is wild garlic, known across much of Britain as ramsons and botanically as Allium ursinum. By early April entire woods can be carpeted with its broad, glossy leaves, sometimes stretching further than you can see.

Look for it in ancient woodland on heavy, damp soils, often near streams and in dappled shade under oak, ash and hazel. It flowers from April into early June with loose umbels of white, star-shaped blooms, which are edible too. By midsummer the leaves have yellowed and gone, and the plant retreats underground as a bulb until the next spring.

Identifying wild garlic safely

Wild garlic is straightforward to identify once you know the signs, but a few plants grow in exactly the same places and must not be eaten. Check every one of these each time.

• Smell. Crush one leaf between your fingers. It should smell cleanly of garlic or chives. No garlic smell, no picking.
• Leaves. Soft, hairless, bright green and lance-shaped, usually 10–25cm long, growing from the base and often in pairs. The stem is triangular in cross-section, not round.
• Flowers. Six-petalled white stars in a loose cluster on a single upright stem, appearing after the leaves.
• Habitat. Damp shade, woodland, hedge bottoms and shaded stream banks — never dry, open ground.

Two lookalikes matter. Lily of the valley has similar leaves but no garlic scent, and every part of it is poisonous. Autumn crocus also pushes up broad leaves in spring and is seriously toxic. Young lords-and-ladies is arrow-shaped with wavy edges and smells earthy, while bluebell leaves are narrow and strappy rather than broad. If you are new to foraging, go out with someone experienced for your first few trips.

Picking with care

In the UK you may pick leaves, flowers and fruit of wild plants for personal use, but uprooting any wild plant without the landowner's permission is an offence — so never dig up bulbs. Many nature reserves and Sites of Special Scientific Interest have byelaws banning picking altogether, so check before you travel.

• Pick only where wild garlic covers a good few square metres. If it is a thin scattering, leave it.
• Take one leaf per plant and no more than about one leaf in ten, never stripping a patch.
• Cut or pinch cleanly near the base rather than pulling, which can lift the bulb.
• Leave most flowers and seed heads so the colony can set seed.
• Avoid roadsides, busy dog-walking spots and anywhere that may have been sprayed.
• Stay on paths where you can — the same wood is hosting bluebell, wood anemone and dog's mercury.

Early spring is best, while the leaves are tender and sweet. Once flowering begins they turn stringier and more peppery, though still usable. Wash everything thoroughly in cold water at home.

Simple things to make

Wild garlic is at its best raw or barely cooked. A quick wilt preserves the colour; long cooking turns it drab and bitter.

• Pesto. Blitz 100g washed leaves with 50g toasted hazelnuts, 50g grated hard cheese, a squeeze of lemon and enough rapeseed oil to loosen. Keeps a week chilled, or freeze in ice-cube trays.
• Butter. Beat finely chopped leaves into softened butter with lemon zest and salt, roll into a log, chill and slice onto new potatoes or grilled fish.
• Soup. Soften an onion and a diced potato in butter, add stock, simmer until tender, then stir in a big handful of shredded leaves and blend. Do not boil once the leaves go in.
• Eggs. Fold chopped leaves through scrambled eggs or an omelette at the last moment.
• Oil. Blanch the leaves for 30 seconds, refresh in iced water, dry, blend with oil and strain. Refrigerate and use within a week, or freeze.

Bringing it into the garden

Wild garlic suits a shady, damp corner and looks well with ferns, wood anemone and bluebells. It wants moist, humus-rich soil in dappled shade and will spread slowly by seed and bulb offsets to form a carpet. Buy bulbs or plants from a reputable nursery, or ask a friend for a division, and never lift it from the wild. Once settled it needs little beyond an autumn mulch of leafmould. Leave the flowers for the bees if you can spare them.