A favourite haunt

We headed back to St Kilda today, to the allotment site on the old peanut farm.  It's one of our favourite Melbourne haunts.  It's completely bonkers, with crazy bits and pieces stuck in the ground to decorate the plots, but we love it.  

But first, the quote of the day.

I think these might be apricots, but I am not sure!  They look the wrong shape for peaches, lovely colour anyway.

This could be Rosa Mundi.  I love stripey roses, and have one of these bushes at home, in the herb bed.

There are some art studios along one side of the allotment garden and I think these hands come from one of those studios!  

The plaster cast hands are attached to vines, which run along a path from the street to an undercover area which, today, was producing some rather good cooking smells. 

The allotment garden also sometimes serves as a drop in centre, and today they were cooking lunch for homeless people and Aboriginals.  There was a happy, chatty atmosphere as everyone sat around, waiting for their lunch. 

This is a lovely, fragrant lemon verbena bush.  It was tempting to pick a few leaves to make some delicious tea, but I resisted!

 Now a little of the lunacy!  All great fun, and lots of creativity!

They do grow vegetables too, which were all looking extremely healthy, throughout the whole allotment site.  That's the roller coaster ride in Luna Park, in the background.

Yellow courgettes, which are a good deal bigger than the ones I managed to grow this year!

And a little greenhouse, full of basil seedlings.

We left the bewildered cow behind and headed for a nearby suburb called Balaclava. Back on the graffiti trail again!  I didn't see anything I wanted to photograph, except for one or two of the dinky little houses, built back in the days of Queen Victoria.  It never ceases to amaze me that with all the space there is in Australia, they built these tiny wee houses.  The photo below shows two houses, with one car parked in front of both of them!  

We thought this was rather a clever way to use an old brick building.  Between the old gable end and the new sliding doors there is a terrace, nice idea.  Not sure about the graffiti here!

 

For me, I don't think you can get much more elegant than this front porch.