"Gardening is an act of faith in the future"

It's Saturday afternoon in St Kilda. I turn away from the bustle of Acland Street and arrive at a large metal gate. I give it a push; it creaks and opens. Inside, I can hear the clacketty-clack of the wooden roller-coaster and the squeals of its passengers across the road in Luna Park, but they sound as if they are far away.

I'm in Veg Out, an organic community garden in the grounds of what was the St Kilda Bowling Club, on land reserved for public use since 1881.

I wander along the irregular pathways between the garden plots. Some are planted with flowers, most with vegetables and herbs. There is an occasional fruit tree, netted against birds or possums. Everywhere there are artworks, figurines, and transplanted objects such as letterboxes and handbasins.

I meet a man wearing a blue checked shirt and heavy silver chains on his wrists. Lenny is watering his newly planted seedlings – tomatoes, chard, lettuces. His plot also holds a passionfruit vine, garlic plants, a couple of chilli bushes sporting tiny fruit, and a bright patch of yellow pansies.

Lenny tells me he's worked a plot here for 16 years, "since the beginning". He also tends to the chickens three days a week. They share their enclosure with a stone angel reclining on a garden seat, one winged arm extended along the seat back, the other hand pointing past a cumquat tree out towards Lenny's plot.

Lenny says it’s busy now with people cultivating 140 plots. “And others like me just coming to look,” I suggest.

“Oh, they don’t just come to look,” he snorts. “Some come to take. When the trees are in fruit, they even bring shopping trolleys . . .”

So please, come to Veg Out, but don’t take advantage of the gardeners’ hard work. Come in the spirit of the words you will read at the entrance: “Gardening is an act of faith in the future”.

SW – Post 3