Post Comment Love 28 - 31 August

Hello there, welcome to this week’s #PoCoLo - a relaxed, friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked, comment and share some of that love.

Please don’t link up posts which are older as they may be removed, and if you see older posts are linked then please don’t feel that it’s necessary to comment on those. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here we’re pleased you’ve joined us.

It’s a bank holiday weekend here this weekend so the linky will stay open an extra day, closing late on Monday evening to give you a little more time to join us, and to do all the bank holiday things.

Though it’s looking like it might be a more typical bank holiday weather-wise. For the past two days we’ve had thunderstorms and heavy rain forecast, and they both turned up yesterday. But with the ground so dry after the multiple heat waves it’s been running off all over the place, as you’d expect. It’s been so wet - and I’m not complaining - that our garden sofa had puddles on it for most of the day! But already the grass is starting to recover and look just a little greener, we definitely needed a bit of rain.

And while I’m talking about the weather, there’s been a noticeable shift seasonally. We still have the humidity during the day, but the early mornings and later evenings definitely have a chill about them.

I’ve also spotted and foraged my first blackberries this week too. I’d arrived early for my hair appointment and so as the weather was way nicer than it was supposed to be I took myself off for a very little walk to kill some time. It made me smile though as I got back to my car with a handful of blackberries, whereas in London I’d’ve mooched around the shops. Sometimes when life changes it’s the small things that catch you.

Have a great week.

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Admiring the vegetable plots at Barnsdale

* I was invited to a press visit at Barnsdale Gardens earlier in the summer, so my posts from that visit will be marked as 'Ad’ though as usual my views and opinions are very much my own.

The visit took place just before this year’s Gardeners’ World Live show in June and quite honestly I’ve been drowning in photos, life, and plans for blog posts ever since so I’m only just starting to catch up with myself now. I’ve decided to share three posts from Barnsdale Gardens, which are located in the UK’s smallest county of Rutland.

They were the home and TV gardens of former Gardeners’ World presenter Geoff Hamilton, but are now fully open to the public and run by his son Nick. It’s a fabulous place to visit, this being my second time there - the first was back in 2021 when we stayed in a lodge at relatively nearby Easton Walled Gardens, so I knew what I was heading into, and quite honestly this won’t be my last visit to Barnsdale, as as with all gardens it’s ever changing, and I’m sure I haven’t seen everything yet either.

The first of my three posts will, as you’ve probably guessed by the title, focus on some of the vegetable gardens and plots, there’ll be other posts for the flowers, structures and special bits but they’re for another day.

Let’s start in the Parterre Garden, which is garden number 21, and was built as one of the main projects for the 1996 series of Gardeners’ World. It combines a more formal design, but is a high yielding space using rectangular, square and triangular beds.

As you enter the space you’re stuck by the flowers rather than the veg, but the ornamental plants are limited to narrow beds around the outside of the garden, designed to give the impression of being in a flower garden. On this visit the blues of the delphiniums were about to reach their peak, and echoed the colour of the sky which was lucky as while we’d had that first heatwave in May, there’d been wet and drizzly weather immediately afterwards.

The garden’s design is one that could easily be replicated in a back garden, and even though this one was designed in 1996 (or just before) it still looks current and something that many veg growers would be very proud of.

Outside in garden 22, the allotment things were a lot more regimented and growing in rows as you’d expect in any traditional allotment space. Here though, while it’s larger than the usual allotment plot, it’s been planted to give a variety of produce throughout the year and in its heyday it was the home of many Gardeners’ World vegetable features for many years.

There’s definitely something pleasing about seeing vegetables grow in ordered rows, and I know that it’s not as easy as it looks - or not for me anyway!

One of my favourite spaces at Barnsdale is the Ornamental Kitchen Garden (garden number 24) which first appeared on the Gardeners’ World programme back in 1990. It showed that many edible plants also have ornamental value and can still crop as they would when grown in more usual or traditional surroundings.

It mixes flowers and produce in borders, which of course is a centuries old method, but in this garden it was the first time it was seen on the TV, and therefore it set a new standard for gardening programmes which I know I’m grateful for. It’s something that I’d like to replicate in a very small way in my own garden, and seeing this garden first hand confirmed that’s what I’d like to aim for - though realistically, not on this scale!

The other thing about this garden, which I can totally relate to, is that many visitors find it hard to tell which plants are the vegetables. Surely that’s got to be a win?

I was taken with the peach tree which is growing along the back wall, and which fruits prolifically. Though Nick assured me that they rarely get an unbruised peach - and that’s because many of the visitors can’t resist a pinch or a prod to check they’re real!

It really is a gorgeous space, and it’s nice to wander around its paths to the relative coolness of the pergola and to the hexagonal greenhouse you saw when you first entered the garden.

The final garden I’m sharing in this post is the Kitchen Garden (garden number 32) which this year is being used for growing sweet peas and dahlias, and it smells divine, and must be one of the most joyous spaces around when it springs into bloom, and scent.

And yes, sweet peas are flowers - but as they’re growing in the kitchen garden, I’m including them in this post!

There’s other ‘veg focussed’ gardens at Barnsdale too, including the Herb Garden, the Fruit Orchard and the Apple Arch, so if vegetables are your thing - or you want them to be your thing - then if you’re close by it really is worth popping along for some extraordinary inspiration.

* With thanks to Barnsdale Gardens for inviting me to the gardens, and to Nick Hamilton for leading a tour through a selection of the gardens available. It’s a great space and I’m pretty sure I’ll be back to visit again.

Other makes update: August 2026

I’ve still not found a better name for my non-quilt sewing plans for the year, but I have found time to make some stuff since my last update in May, so I’m ok with that.

So let’s take a look shall we:

1 Pouches

Strangely only one completed this time round, and that one was using the flying geese blocks that were in the bag of pre-cut and pre-sewn items donated to my sewing group.

Out of the same scraps I’ve also made a patchwork drawstring bag, a bread cover and a small fabric storage box which didn’t go quite to plan!

So I’m claiming progress in the bags, experimental sewing and practical household items headings for these too because that’s where they fit don’t they?

2. A ‘take to’ sewing case

Still nothing to see here, I’m afraid.

3. A bag or two, or more

The drawstring bag for my bread might not have necessarily been the bag I had in mind for this section, but it’s a bag and it’s made so it absolutely fits here.

4 Experimental sewing and sewing for fun

There’s been some of this recently too - and it’s those scraps again. As I said above the fabric storage basket ended up smaller than I planned and I had to improvise on the lining, but not everything can go right all of the time can it? And to be honest I’m glad I messed up on something like this rather than anything else I’ve made these past few months.

There’s also been an update to dad’s birthday bunting, with a two to replace last year’s one.

5 Patchwork design boards

I haven’t yet put my learnings from the last update into practice, but they’re still on the list - and I’m sure once I start I’ll be wondering what took me so long.

6 Some practical household items

I think I’ve covered this above, multiple times!

7 Wearables

Well who knew that this would be where the most action would take place, certainly not me when I set my goals for the year. But since I last updated you I’ve finished my Sari dressing gown and started and finished in record time a dress. Who even am I?

Seriously though finishing these two items has given me loads more confidence to carry on sewing garments, which is good news as I’ve plenty of plans some of which I may actually start to put into production.

But in the meantime here’s two photos to end this post of my two wearables, and I’m really proud of both of them (especially as neither have fallen apart!)

I’m hoping that the heatwaves are mostly behind us, though I hear another could be on the horizon for early next month, and with the cooler days I’ll be able to spend more time sewing. I could definitely do with that as always I’ve got more plans than I know how to implement, but I’m sure I’m not alone in that.