Bruce Ingram

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Articles

Gifts of the Land: Stewardship

Jan 8, 2025 | blueridgecountry.com | Bruce Ingram

The interplay of trees is a key to happy wildlife. The time is an early Saturday morning in February, and Elaine’s and my 38-acre woodlot in Botetourt County, Virginia, needs tending. I call our daughter Sarah and ask her to send grandsons Sam and Eli across the hollow. It’s time for the boys to learn another lesson in stewardship—a rural landowner’s responsibility to do what’s right for the land and the wildlife that live on it in these mountains.
January’s Wild Edible: Cattails

Jan 3, 2025 | blueridgecountry.com | Bruce Ingram

Cattails are native plants throughout the Blue Ridge. For that matter, Typha latifolia thrives in all 50 of the states except Hawaii, and it is one of the few wild edibles that can be enjoyed in January. Clay Morris, who is the foraging expert for Ashby Gap Adventures, explains how to enjoy the rhizome part of the plant this winter. “The rhizome is a root that runs horizontally underground,” he says. “The plant spreads as new shoots will emerge from the rhizomes as they creep outward.
December's Blue Ridge Mountain Apple Profile: The Old Fashion Winesap

Dec 6, 2024 | blueridgecountry.com | Bruce Ingram

One of the truly great heritage Blue Ridge apples is the Old Fashion Winesap, often called simply Winesap. Interestingly, this variety did not originate in our region, probably first appearing in New Jersey in the 1700s. But it has been an important mountain apple for some 200 years, and one that held a cherished place in the orchards of subsistence, highland farms.
December’s Wild Edible: Black Haws

Dec 4, 2024 | blueridgecountry.com | Bruce Ingram

As an understory tree in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the common black haw is often overlooked although it’s common in these highlands. And quite frankly, our region’s wild mammals and birds largely ignore the dogwood-berry-size purplish black drupes until later in the fall when other more appealing soft mast has been consumed. But that only results in the fruits of Viburnum prunifolium becoming an important food source for wildlife in December and January.
November's Blue Ridge Mountain Apple Profile: Stayman Winesap

Nov 14, 2024 | blueridgecountry.com | Bruce Ingram

Elaine’s favorite apple is the Stayman Winesap, and I would rate it as my third favorite, behind only two other heritage varieties: the Black Twig and Grimes Golden. The reasons are numerous why this traditional Blue Ridge Mountains apple is so highly esteemed by us and many others as well. The Stayman Winesap originated in Kansas in the mid-1800s, but it began to appear in our region late in that century and quickly became a fixture in highland orchards.
Gifts of the Land: Speaking of Christmas

Nov 1, 2024 | blueridgecountry.com | Bruce Ingram

The decades have provided annual markers for a marriage and a life. The worst—and darkest—Christmas for me was the one in 1974. I had graduated from Roanoke College that spring and unable to find a job as a high school English teacher, had spent the fall and winter working as a janitor at a McDonald’s in Roanoke, Virginia. I earned $2.10 an hour, a princely nickel more than most hourly workers, because of the arduous nature of the position.
November’s Wild Edible: Plums

Oct 31, 2024 | blueridgecountry.com | Bruce Ingram

I had never seen an Allegheny plum until about 10 years ago when I stumbled across a tree on my Monroe County, West Virginia, land. Since then, I’ve found only a few other Prunus alleghaniensis, as they don’t seem to be widespread in the Blue Ridge Mountains. In fact in our region, this native tree only exists in the two Virginias as well as Tennessee and North Carolina. That’s too bad because the plum is a fascinating understory tree that has great value to wildlife, especially mammals.
October’s Wild Edible: Black Cherries

Oct 15, 2024 | blueridgecountry.com | Bruce Ingram

Along the driveway leading to Elaine’s and my Botetourt County, Virginia, home lies a black cherry tree (Prunus serotina). Every September and October, the tree attracts large numbers of songbirds, drawn there because of the cherries and the summer grapes dangling from vines that have rambled up the black “peeling” bark. Another diagnostic trait are the three-inch long or so lance-like leaves which feature sharp tips. I, too, am drawn to the native black cherry tree.
Baked Pheasant Recipe with Bacon & Apples

Oct 15, 2024 | grit.com | Dana Benner |Shirley Splittstoesser |Bruce Ingram |Elaine Ingram

I hunt and fish to help put food on the table, but I don’t usually hunt pheasant. Thankfully, I have friends who do, so I usually have a bird or two in the freezer.
September's Blue Ridge Mountain Apple Profile: The Dolgo Crabapple

Sep 17, 2024 | blueridgecountry.com | Bruce Ingram

The Blue Ridge Mountain region boasts a rich heritage apple tradition, as the settlers of these highlands often either brought apple varieties from their country of origin or cultivated seedlings that happened to spring forth on their homesteads. The Dolgo crabapple falls in the former category arriving from Russia in the 1890s. Our ancestors appreciated the fact that if this variety could survive the harshness of Siberian winters, it surely could do the same here.