Wellsville Garden Report for Saturday 6/27/20
Good Day! Thanks for tuning into the first edition of a new weekly report on what is growing around 14895. Every Saturday will feature updates on the village centerpiece garden, aka The Fassett Greenspace, along with items of interest from both my home garden and hopefully YOURS!! So if you have a cool garden to show off please contact me and participate. You can submit pictures and text to Sunsetsolarfarm@yahoo.com or schedule a interview/photo session in your garden.
First, just for the new kids, let’s talk about the community garden at The Fassett Greenspace on Main Street. This “amalgamation of art and agriculture” is the child of local non-profit group Art For Rural America. The space itself was designed by artist Cassandra Bull and features a centerpiece fountain crafted by world renowned sculpture artist William Underhill. The labyrinth style raised gardens are full of flowers, herbs, and vegetables and ANYONE is welcome to gently harvest the food crops(please don’t cut the flowers). The greenspace also boasts multiple outdoor musical instruments, a Little Free Library, and a community-built mosaic located under our fancy kiosk. If you haven’t visited the space, please do soon: It was built for EVERYONE, especially KIDS!!!
This location is just great for growing: full sun and high relative humidity thanks to our beloved Genesee River just a few hundred feet away. When you are strolling around the labyrinth you will find that the outer ring is planted exclusively with ornamentals. Many local sweethearts have donated bulbs and plants that make this display better each year. The two ‘inner’ rings are dedicated to vegetables, plus strawberries. Around the fountain circle you will find culinary and medicinal herbs galore.
We have received tons of rain in the days leading up to this report so I expect this garden will “explode” in the last few days of June. You will find young baby zucchini that has no interest in getting old, fat, or turned into a questionable loaf of bread. Celery does very well in this garden and a large patch is ready for select harvesting: Just snip off as many stalks as you need and leave the rest, the celery greens are super too!! The Red Russian kale needs to be cut back almost entirely as we do have a flea beetle issue on our brassica plants. Its very young and tender, great for sautée or salad. Swiss Chard and salad greens are also ready for eating and several successions will be available all summer. Last but not least you will find a nice mass of peas, both snow and snap varieties, begging to introduce a new face to the joy of eating direct from the garden.
As mentioned, the core of this garden is a culinary herb display like none other. You will find nearly twenty different herbs, some are in desperate need of harvest. From curry to catmint to horseradish, several sorts of basil and sage, plus exotics like lemongrass and marjoram. The cilantro and parsley plants are in need of a haircut so please harvest them liberally as they will be replaced soon.
I hope you will visit the Fassett Greenspace this weekend, it was created for you and the community. More specifically this place is for children and families to have a place where food, art, music, and Main Street come together. Let your kid(or inner child) wander around and enjoy the flowers or harvest some vegetables for dinner. These small, seemingly simple things create lasting impressions that can only increase our connection to food and each other!!
The “Greenspace” is open to the public daily, dawn til dusk. Smoking, alcohol consumption, and unsavory loitering are prohibited. To volunteer, donate, or just ask a question visit www.artforruralamerica.org or visit us on Facebook at “The Fassett Greenspace Project”
“The work of the day measures more than the planting and growing” – J.P Barlow
Pictures by local photog Melanie Hunt Streeter
