Non Political garden related Brexit

[KevinM67]

I suppose it depends on what sort of 'Brexit' will materialise.
The 'let's stuff it up the EU and leave on WTO rules' type brexit will see the death of UK farming. Honestly.
Whilst trying not to be political, and trying to stick to the gardening side of things - people still need to eat.
Whilst we all enjoy 'The Good Life' way of providing for ourselves - the vast majority of folks (including ourselves) still have to rely on shop bought produce to sustain us in food throughout the whole year.
UK Farming only provides around 60% of the foodstuff that the UK currently consumes.
Whilst I will always advocate that we should try and get into eating fruit/veg when it is in season (and locally produced) - last year taught us that the weather can be a forgivable friend and an unforgivable enemy.

[Vince G]

Found some figures on this for 2017. Fruit and veg imports £6.1bn, exports £307m, so a massive disparity but we must be able to reduce it a bit surely. Biggest veg imports are toms and peppers from Spain and the Netherlands, and mushrooms from Ireland which surprised me. Fruit wise the biggest volumes were for bananas from the Dominican Rep and Colombia, grapes and citrus from Spain and South Africa and apples from France and South Africa.

[veggiechicken]

We used to import a lot of apples and other fruit from Australia & New Zealand but that was knocked on the head when the UK turned to Europe.

[Thelma Sanders]

When you look at the price of a packet of runner/green beans imported from Africa, no wonder the import bill is so high!
Maybe we can go back to eating English apples and pears again, like we used to In Thanet Kent we have one of those huge hydroponic greenhouses growing local tomatoes all year round, so it can be done..
Still be able to get Bananas, plus grapes from South Africa, 'cos we'll still be able to trade with them

[Mark_Riga]

Was thinking of growing quinoa again - takes a while to clean after harvesting but can be done listening to music or the radio.

[rary]

With my evening meal tonight I had salad leaves from my greenhouse, growing in there without any special heating or lighting, I still have some potatoes which were grown in an old 200lt. cold water tank and there is also chard and leeks sitting in veg. bed, so if I can have food growing in the garden here surly it could be grow commercially as for importing tomatoes and peppers from abroad Spain has a better growing climate than here and the Netherlands has far superior growing methods than is practiced in Britain driven mainly by striving for sustainable farming, also worth noting is how Cuba changed its farming system when the soviet Union collapsed, I know there is a difference in climatic conditions, but both countries show what can be done, and irispective what the outcome is I think we, Britain, need to do the same, or will the people who could take us that way too busy thinking "what's in it for me"

[veggiechicken]

I was reading today about Bramley Apples and how the UK has fallen out of love with British apples. As a result many orchards have been ripped out and cannot quickly be replaced.
We need to support our own growers and buy their crops in preference to imported produce.

[Mikey]

I've got a new beef today,

Trying to reduce my plastic waste, was looking at making some beeswax wraps, there's a bee place in Llanishen that sell their own filtered wax, and I've got loads of cotton scraps.

So has anyone else made these, and do they flavour your food?

[SarrissUK]

I haven't made them myself Mikey, but I hear from a couple of friends of mine that do all sorts like that, and they love them. I don't think they flavour the food, but I reckon the beeswax would make take on the smell of onion etc.