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Ramp Tramp Festival
Polk County 4-H Camp
Reliance, TN
423-338-4503
www.polkagextension.com/ramppage.html
Free/EST
The festival takes place in late April, beginning on Thursday, when the ramp is in season, ripe for picking.
Ramp is a fragrant, sweet variety of the onion family, and is said to grow best wild, and is cultivated with difficulty, and almost exclusively grows above 5,000 feet elevation. Participants in the Ramp Tramp go into the mountains to gather the ramp, then serve it up with other foods at the festival. The festival features mountain music and crafts. Musicians play for dancers on each day of the festival and jam in the campground.
Put on your hiking boots and hike up into the mountains to help start the festival on Thursday by participating in the annual Ramp Dig. This is an all-day event. Lunch will be provided. Reserve your digging spot by calling the Polk County Agricultural Extension Service at 423-338-4503.
After digging the ramp, volunteers are needed on Friday to clean the ramps in preparation for the festival meal. This takes place at the Polk County 4-H Camp in the Greasy Creek community. You can enjoy bluegrass music while you consume a bowl of white beans, cornbread, 'streaked meat' and raw ramp.
On Saturday, spend the day enjoying bluegrass music and old time fellowship while enjoying a meal of fried ramp in eggs, fried potatoes, streaked meat, white beans, and corn bread. The festival gets underway at 10am with a Flag Raising Ceremony by the Polk County Veterans, then the lunch, and a craft and music fair with crafts for sale, bluegrass, country, and gospel Music.
Directions: The Polk County 4-H Camp is located 2 and one half miles off Hwy 64 on Hwy 30 between Ocoee and Ducktown, TN. To get there: head west on Hwy 30 from Hwy 64 toward Camp McCroy.
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