Non Political garden related Brexit

[veggiechicken]

Franchi are getting in on the "panic" by offering a Brexit Seed Survival kit!! All you need to feed your family for a year.

https://www.seedsofitaly.com/index.a...rzYejZCnIo1n0I

[Thelma Sanders]

Hahahahaha a new marketing possibility!

But in reality missing a lot of crops that people actually eat in a year

[veggiechicken]

I like their simple guide to growing - especially "one fist apart in dirt".

Instructions:

It is very easy to over complicate growing veg. Plant them at the proper time and depth one fist apart in dirt and water them when dry.

You can grow them in garden soil or by grow bags from your garden centre which are not expensive.

Try and plant them all in at least 60% sun, the tomato 75%.

[Snoop Puss]

Well, at least they do say "help to feed your family". Be hard to get your five-a-day on just those.

And I can't imagine you'll do very well planting some of those out at a fist apart. That said, my favourite measuring units are my palm plus thumb flat against my hand (just shy of 10 cm) and my span (18 cm).

[Jungle Jane]

I'm guessing that UK seed suppliers won't be able to send seeds to the EU, like back in the old days. So that might affect me. I've tried other suppliers in France and Spain, but prices are either higher (France) or the selections are extremely limited (Spain). And I imagine I won't be able to bring back seed potatoes from the UK either. So I'll be affected yes. But this year at least I'll be carrying on as per, pretty much.

If you ever find it difficult to get seeds you want,I’ll try & get them here & send them to you. I wish politicians were like gardeners,we all help each other!

[Snoop Puss]

^Thanks, JJ (if I can call you that).

What a lovely bunch of people we have on this forum.

[SarrissUK]

I am happy to send on stuff too

I've just come back from Sweden, and as it happens I found lots of food I brought back with me. I also found dried lima beans, huge ones! I bought a whole pack of 750 gram for less than what I could get 12 on fleabay or anywhere else. I'm sowing lots of beans this year!
I don't use a lot of salad, and try to get stuff from the shops that are in season. I'm not great at growing winter veg though, that are ready in the winter, so I am going to deliberately make sure I focus on that too this year. I certainly don't want to pay higher prices for veg, so the answer is to grow them!

[Mikey]

As a family there are a number of veg we eat a lot of that I don't grow very successfully or enough of.

Broccoli, Calabrese whatever you want to call it, my ground is too fertile and light now and they need support, the head also bursts before it gets to any decent size so it's a bit of a wasted crop. I've tried growing purple sprouting which while successful has such a long season I can't really give it the bed space as there will be at least 3 to 4 other crops I'd lose to it.

Carrots, I can't grow enough I reckon we get through about 1200 carrots a year, and I can only grow and give space to about 1/4 of that.

Onions, again by volume I can't grow enough roughly 300 a year needed and I grow about 40-50.

Potatoes, we use about 800-900 a year and I produce no more than about 100-200.

Spinach, my wife and daughter get through about 4 large bags a week, I can keep them in spinach from End of May to about the end of September but, the rest of the time it's shop bought.
Historically I've avoided the inexpensive staples or only given them a small space so I have them fresh from the ground. I used to have more space when I had the allotment and there was no worry

Spaghetti, I've only got the three trees now and I probably need about 25, it's gonna be a big worry to be fair.

Oh, the growing pains of a small/medium back garden.

[Vince G]

The things that we may miss out on are the things we can't grow in the UK at certain times of the year, salads and strawberries in January for instance...but why would you want to?? Tasteless insipid rubbish grown in a Spanish or Dutch greenhouse. We also have the technology to store stuff for longer, so why buy Egyptian potatoes in February, when you can get perfectly good UK grown Maris Pipers from store?

Fruit and veg in this country is available when it's supposed to be: Asparagus from April to June, parsnips from October to March, purple sprouting from now until May (had our first pickings at the weekend, yum!) etc.

Whether we do ultimately end up out of the EU or not, which is looking less and less likely, we need to re-learn how to eat seasonally again in this country, and enterprising British farmers need to have a think and grow what we are lacking. It shouldn't matter that Mikey hasn't got enough room to grow enough spinach, I'm sure farmers could easily grow enough spinach for his family, rather than it being imported from Spain, it stands ok in the winter with minimal protection.

If we do leave the EU, and people really can't do without their luxury fruits and don't care about food miles, we should be re-connecting with former partners. Those of us a certain age will remember Jaffa - I have a client in Israel who still sends the team a huge box of Jaffa citrus fruit at Christmas, and damn good they are too. There's a town in South Africa called Outspan we've forgotten about, most of our bananas and pineapples used to come from Commonwealth Caribbean countries (remember Fyffes?).

That's our food supplies sorted out, perhaps I should pop off to Brussels and sort Brexit too.........

[veggiechicken]

Vince, is this your GH?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-eng...s-of-the-fruit

I agree with you about eating seasonally and supporting our "old" partners. The Fyffes banana boats were frequent visitors to the South Wales ports.

Anyway, I think Mikey is protesting too much. Spuds, carrots and onions are staple crops in the UK so why not buy those and support local growers and grow more spinach or whatever else you fancy at home. Brexit or not, it doesn't mean that everyone has to be totally self-sufficient within their own home.

[SarrissUK]

I agree, we should buy and grow seasonally, and that's all a good thing, but I'm in no way supporting Brexit.

I am hoping to be more self-sufficient than I've ever been before, this year to come, and that's definitely a good thing, Brexit or not

[Chestnut]

^^^ Like all things gardening, where there’s a will there’s a way!
I am still harvesting salad leaves from the greenhouse, unheated, sown in October.

There must be someone on the vine who has grown strawberries in january... maybe indoors with a growlight? Or with one of those manure hotbed thingys in the GH?

I am sure we will figure it out between us ;-)

[veggiechicken]

I refuse to buy imported tomatoes and strawberries out of season and am happy to wait until June to savour the first ones I grow myself. If you can eat something every day of the year it becomes boring and predictable. Where's the pleasure in that?

[Vince G]

Vince, is this your GH?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-eng...s-of-the-fruit

I agree with you about eating seasonally and supporting our "old" partners. The Fyffes banana boats were frequent visitors to the South Wales ports.

Anyway, I think Mikey is protesting too much. Spuds, carrots and onions are staple crops in the UK so why not buy those and support local growers and grow more spinach or whatever else you fancy at home. Brexit or not, it doesn't mean that everyone has to be totally self-sufficient within their own home.

Ha ha I wish VC. It was featured on the local news and I think I know where it is, so might try and beg my way in for a look. All sorts of new fangled lighting and heating, so hopefully the toms will be better than those out of the Dutch greenhouses.

[burnie]

I really miss seasonality in what we eat, my better half insists on buying tasteless fruit and veg out of season, now matter how much I refuse to eat it.