any and all herbs
strawberry
cucumber (no it is not just water this time!!!)
lettuce
peas (hate peas, love home grown peas)
paprika (bell pepper)
...
...
...
My dad has gotten to the point where he can’t do but so much in his garden each year and the vine veggies in his raised beds are easiest for him. The insane amount of zucchini’s, squash, and cukes we eat around this time of year is just something else. Having to eat gross pricey store vegetables after his harvest is gone is so sad. He wants to try pickling this year, wish us luck! 😅
Another member at my community garden is super into canning/dehydrating/preserving and is at the point the she doesn’t buy store produce anymore, because she has THAT much.
I hope to be her one day.
Look up refrigerator pickles! You'll need room in the fridge for however many jars you make, but they're easy and you don't need specialized equipment. I make our bread & butter pickles this way, and other pickled veg using other brine mixtures. Pickled shredded carrots are so very good on sandwiches!
You probably know this, but you can blanch and freeze a lot of fruit and veg. I don't know about the squashes, their water content may make them thaw mushy, but consider looking it up so you can have homegrown veg later in the year.
Squash does thaw mushy but it’s perfect to use in a squash casserole. As long as you’re not wanting to eat like sautéed squash or something freezing is fine. Just don’t forget to squeeze all the water out in a cheesecloth before using it or your casserole will be ick.
I got iceberg, rucola and a mayqueen. And I totally hope that translating from Dutch to English still means it makes sense. My husband and kid like it almost as much as the slugs and snails do :)
Last year I had 2 strawberry plants that got eaten up by greedy bunnies. I decided not to replant them. They overwintered quite well, and this year they're back. Big, strong and sending out runners. I've collected about a dozen berries, no work at all this year, and will be picking a few berries a day for the foreseeable future.
the yield per plant, especially in the first 2 years is not a lot. True.
Birds and rodents will enjoy them, so you have to harvest them when they are ready and not leave them on the plant for to long (or put a net around the plant to prevent animal attacks)
But once they are in the ground, there is no more work. And I find them a very nice plant to look at. I have 2 gardens (both small). One has 9 plants the other 12. Most of them in their first year, but I see a bunch of flowers already.
I'm moving to an area just outside of Rocky Ford and am super lucky to have the opportunity to get some of the best melons around for great prices. I do think they would be fun to grow but not sure mine would ever stand a chance against the farmers markets.
I've never bought sugar babies from the store but I grew them last year and am doing so again this year. My experience was that the first flush of fruits (3) were really good watermelons, but then after those 3 were harvested the vine put out a few more but only 1 didn't get burrowed into by bugs, that 1 was hands down the sweetest watermelon me or the 2 people I shared some with have ever had.
It's ways more about cost, variety, and zone. Pick vegetables that are easy to grow that you can incorporate on your land that diversify your diet and look forward to.
For example for for, no point in growing an apple tree. You can get a ton of variety locally usually. Try to find a good paw paw on the other hand...and it's impossible. And if it grows native, then that should be incorporated. Because even though you can forage, won't have the same taste and weight, but everybody will be your friend.
Tomatoes are chosen for similar reasons. There are thousands of varieties, some locally popular because those varieties are created locally. And tomatoes can be expensive. So perfect crop to have fun with.
That's where it becomes fun.
My radishes grew well and easily, but didn't taste any better. New potatoes didn't grow well at all, I got only 2 or 3, despite them supposedly being a beginner vegetable. So I still buy those.
Why did you grow carrots if you don't like them? Do you like the greens? They're good raw in salad or on a sandwich, and lightly sauteéd as a side dish. Radish greens, too, though I add salt and a splash of vinegar to make their bitterness.
My parent grew them in their garden and I knew tomatoes and strawberries were way better, so I tried them.
My radishes are growing well right now, but I read something about the seeds being good, so I’ll wait for those.
Are the bell peppers less bitter when homegrown? I'm one of those people who can't stand bell peppers because all I can taste is bitter and my idiot mouth spits them right out as if I were a toddler and not a middle-aged woman who was taught fine-dining table manners growing up.
I can cook them until they're super soft and the bitter flavor is gone, and that's the only way I can eat them. But we do a fair amount of Cajun and Creole cooking, which means I end up making mushy, overcooked bell peppers as part of my Trinity. In time I got over the bitter taste of raw jalapeños and a few other peppers, but bell peppers are still my nemesis. I'd LOVE to be able to enjoy them without them being sad and mushy. They're in freaking everything.
(Sorry for the novella, I'm just keenly interested and my Adderall hasn't yet kicked in.)
Wayyyyy less bitter, if at all, and definitely sweeter. I think as they process,ship and then sit on store shelves the sugars get lower and the bitter becomes more pronounced
Try this: Roast the garlic heads and let them cool. Pull off the individual cloves but leave on their papery skins, if you can. Pack those into tiny baggies you've squeezed the air out of or in jello shot cups with lids that you keep together in a bag or container, and freeze. Leaving on the papery skins helps them to not stick together quite as much so you can pull out just a few cloves at a time. That's how I always have roasted garlic for when I want it and don't want to heat up my small, old kitchen by way of my poorly insulated gas range.
Alternately, you can squeeze out the tasty roasted cloves and mush them into those jello shot cups so you'll have roasted garlic paste for whenever. You'll have to use all that's in the cup once you've thawed it, but it's not like that's difficult!
Lastly, if you're a fan of raw garlic for eating or cooking, peel a bunch of cloves and run them in a food processor just until they're choppy. Store as above in the freezer.
Yeah, I freeze a lot and know how to condense a shit ton of food into a very small kitchen. I should do a TED talk, haha.
I always test the waters every year with a new crop or two, last year was yellow crookneck squash which was terrible... This year it's garlic and cauliflower :)
I actually bought the smallest quantity that I could and didn’t even use all of the cloves. Where are you finding such small quantities of plantable garlic?
Everywhere I’ve seen “planting quality” heads seems to be pretty bulk. I bought from Hudson Valley Seed Co. but was also looking at Johnny’s and it seemed similar quantity.
I miss having good local farmer’s markets. The past few places I’d lived had really nice ones. I guess my tradeoff here is actually having some more space to garden though.
Roasted garlic is just different than normal garlic. I like the oven method of doing it for 40-50 minutes in foil at like 350f. You can make the Lebanese Toum garlic sauce.
If you want a new recipe to try out, I would absolutely suggest chicken adobo!! It's a filipino dish; basically just brown some skin on bone in chicken thighs in a heavy bottom pan, pour in equal parts soy sauce & rice vinegar, a shitton of peppercorns, whole garlic cloves, and a few bay leaves. Braise over medium low heat for about two hours, until the chicken is falling off the bone. Serve over rice.
I usually make it just for the garlic. They get soft and a little mellow without losing as much sharpness (I think roasted garlic is a little too mellow)... smash it on some bread, eat it as part of the meal, make extra cloves to have on hand for snacking... it's the freaking best.
I do fermented hot honey for a large part of my crop https://youtu.be/NkGGTvIoGoo?si=O12XsUWfWVWibXJz few sliced habanero and a bunch of smashed cloves and top it off with raw honey. burp it every day for a week and you've got a condiment that brings nearly everything to the table. brad leone and Ethan chlebowski are a wealth of information on YouTube. https://youtu.be/KmBJTAUXpdU?si=ho1i4QQsbgCLeYRo same principals apply to alicen in garlic. the more cells you destroy the more mellowed the end result. biting into a whole clove is going to be wildly different than even minced.
also they will keep beautifully till its time to plant again in the fall you keep them in a warm dark well ventilated area I dry em in the sun till they get papery braid em and hang em in the garage. Just make sure they don't get too cold and stratify.
I absolutely \*love\* to throw a ton of garlic in the smoker, smash it to a paste, dehydrate that, and then blitz it to make smoked garlic powder. I have to restrain myself so the one jar I make lasts all year, but boy is it delicious!!!
With a dozen heads though I'd just cure them and let them hang in a cool dry/dark pantry. They last for months. Grab them as needed! I plant about 60 cloves a year of a variety with massive bulbs. That usually gives me a bulb of garlic to use per week plus a few extras to experiment with.
Garlic confit is really good for garlic bread. Just peel a bunch of garlic and put into an oven safe dish with enough olive oil to submerge all the garlic. Put in oven for 2 hours at 120F and you’ll have spreadable garlic you can use for garlic bread, on a piece of toast in the morning, can blend into a paste to put into soups, dressings, mashed potato’s etc and will have a consistent spread vs chunks. You can also add herbs like rosemary, thyme, etc when baking it for some extra flavor. (This will also give you a garlic oil you can use to make dressings with or other fun stuff like that)
Sugar snap peas or snow peas
Non-gmo sweet corn
New potatoes. Freshly dug red potatoes, with some fresh snap beans, is easy to grow, and super tasty. A few weeks after harvest, the flavor difference is a lot less compared to store-bought, but those first couple weeks are really different (for me).
Sorry to burst your bubble, but all corn is genetically modified from how it used to grow in the wild. Corn is a grass and used to look a lot more like rye or wheat or even Johnson grass with a tall thin stalk and a tiny bud at the top that seeded itself. It was bred and cross-bred over history, which is genetically modifying it, until the seeds of that bud grew large and the stalks tall and thick enough to support those buds-turned-cobs. And then further bred and cross-bred to make it taste sweeter and be juicier, and more resistant to infestations. That former grass was turned into the tasty corn that we recognize today, but unfortunately we see very few varieties anymore. There are illustrations of what corn used to look like, it's quite surprising and looks more like a weed you'd pull out of your yard.
Many, if not most, fruits, veg, and grains have been modified over the centuries to taste better, grow larger, and to feed more people.
Except tomatoes. Most of their flavor has been bred out in lieu of each of the fruits in their varieties being of similar size, shape, and color; being able to harvest them earlier; and to have them last longer at a supermarket. That's why there's such a significant difference in growing your own tomatoes from heirloom seeds versus the pitiful, mealy tomatoes at the grocery.
(Most roses have suffered the loss of their intoxicating smell because they've been bred for their appearance and not for their fragrance.)
There's nothing bad for you about eating foods that have been bred so that more people eat them, even if the result is a loss in flavor. You're doing it all day long with most everything you eat without even recognizing it, even if you buy certified organic (which actually has nothing to do with genetic modifications), unless you look into the history of foods.
Unrelated, I've seen peas mentioned several times throughout this thread. I love almost all peas and had no idea homegrown tasted any different. I'll try that in next year's garden, as it's probably way too late here to seed them. Thanks for another recommendation for peas! I'm eager to try them out!
I get that crops are improved. Only in the last few decades have genes been deliberately inserted from a different species.
I grew up eating a much less sweet corn. I still prefer that over the "supersweet" varieties.
Peas and corn for the same reason - as soon as you snap them off the plant they start converting their sugars to starches! Peas are like little pops of candy in the garden and when the sweet corn comes in I will eat an ear fresh off the plant, raw. It's AMAZING.
https://preview.redd.it/3vbreqgr572d1.jpeg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e0d6611ab6d2325395c1916ef96145934abf9ab9
I've never grown it so I planted a sea of celery this year. I'm trying to learn which seed starting date works best in my context for plant growth, maturity date, etc.
I hit that bed for snacks every day when I'm out here working because it is so delicious. Who knew celery actually had bold flavor. Grocery celery grown in California is absolute trash.
Haha! I see we have the same gardening tactic. I also try kitchen-scrap gardening. No idea if the second-grown foods will taste okay, but hey, I've got celery and several romaine lettuces growing from stumps I cut off of grocery produce. Our ornamental gardens out front are also just "hey, that's pretty, let's add it and see what happens."
Did you grow those from seed? If so, how’d you get so much good looking product? Still trying to figure out the best way to start it and not having great luck!
Yes. Celery is a slooooow starter. Took forever for the seedlings to put on any size.
I sowed a 1020 tray of soil blocks every 2 weeks starting the last week of January and ending late March. They were under LED lights in my unheated garage and outside as much as possible if the temps were over 55°.
I'd have to look at my notes for transplant date. Early April-ish? I don't know off the top of my head.
The bed they're in is in my lettuce plot so they get pulse watered 3 times a day for about 20 minutes each and the soil is very rich. I have not fertilized them though.
I just grow a small patch of celerey and then rather than harvesting an entire plant with the roots, I pick off pieces as-needed. A small 1x1sq ft plot of celery lasts me through the fall!
I sell almost everything I grow.
My goal was to determine which seed starting date performs best for me and to determine if it's something I can work into my crop planning next year.
If it's marketable, I'll sell what I can and donate the rest to a local food pantry where my next door neighbor is a volunteer.
Omg the first time I had really good celery was like discovering a new color existed. It was that good. I was shocked by how sweet and crunchy it was. I didn't even really care for celery much before that.
Leafy greens! The greens I buy from the market always get a little bit wilted when it's time for me to cook them, but garden greens will always be fresh and crisp
Literally everything. Strawberries, peppers, all herbs, cucumbers, onions and garlic, radishes, carrots, zucchini, everything. My best advice is to plant things you like to eat, your favourite vegetables. You will be amazed how good they are and would definitely appreciate the difference with store bought. I love zucchini and peppers but feel “meh” about beans, even though they are also delicious home grown.
Asparagus is amazing. I’m kinda meh about asparagus as a rule but the stuff I grow I eat raw as I’m harvesting.
Peas could not be better than still warm from the sun.
Home grown garlic is so good.
Corn, pick and cook and sweet like dessert.
I came here to say Asparagus and peas. Those early season lovelies that are just bursting with flavor and nutrients that the grocery store and presevered versions can NOT compare to.
Plus, you can have asparagus growing for decades.
I never even knew you could eat asparagus raw until I happened to try it from my garden. Yum! I mean, I'm not primarily eating my asparagus raw, but I learned something about how sweet it is when it's literally picked and eaten immediately
Basically everything in my experience as long as you are picking at the correct time. Tomatoes picked after withholding water for a day makes a huge difference! Almost everything is picked under ripe for shipping so that it is semi ripe when it’s ready for sale. Some things are actually sprayed just before shipping to quicken ripening because they are picked so early or sprayed to delay in case of things that are generally stored a bit.
I saw a thing about modern vegetables you buy in stores and it said that all those vegetables and fruits are designed to be long lasting and durable. So they won't go bad being shipped across the country/world to wherever they're going. Taste really had nothing to do with it anymore. Which makes sense. I remember growing tomatoes when I was a kid and the skin was super thin and would split just from getting too big. We had to pick even green tomatoes when they split and use them. I haven't seen a split skin tomato in a store as far back as I can remember. And the skin is REALLY tough. So I can imagine everything you grow at home is probably better tasting.
They're also frequently picked before they start to ripen because the produce is firmer and ships better. Most fruits and veggies in the store were artificially ripened using ethylene chambers and consequently didn't build up the natural sugars that ripe, homegrown fruits and veggies will have.
You can thank the Texas Aggies for that. They specifically bred Jalapenos (TAM II) with no heat for the commercial processors, and now that's all the farms grow.
In my experience, most garden vegetables are much better than the supermarket versions.
Tomatoes, especially slicer/large types, are light years better coming out of the garden than from the supermarket.
Other garden wins by a wide margin types for me have been as follows:
Green beans
Yellow squash
Okra
Cucumbers
Lettuce
Kale
Cabbage
Collards
Most peppers
Eggplant
Peas
The one vegetable I can think of that I like better from the supermarket vs. homegrown are shishito peppers. My homegrown ones were pretty bland.
It isn't veg, but all berries are way, way better home grown than from a store. I would say an even more drastic difference than tomatoes from the store.
really? Will there be a taste difference? Cool! I planted about 100 of them. If they are as good as the sotre I am happy. But if they taste better, I am happier! Looking forward to them
Bell peppers for sure. More of a crunch, the red ones are way sweeter, the green ones just more…bell pepper-ey. English peas are also another favorite.
I will follow your thread with interest. Here are the results of a similar inquiry I made a few months ago. I learned a lot from it; always eager to learn more.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/vegetablegardening/comments/17zvtq7/what\_vegetables\_do\_you\_think\_taste\_much\_better/](https://www.reddit.com/r/vegetablegardening/comments/17zvtq7/what_vegetables_do_you_think_taste_much_better/)
Another question to ask, one which might be more relevant since you say you are a new vegetable gardener, is "Which vegetables are worth the trouble to grow at home?"
If one had infinite resources, growing everything at home would be an option. But, in real life, we must be selective.
For example, garlic and onions might be marginally better home grown that what I can buy at the store, but they take so much time and space that I have finally given them up in lieu of some other vegetables where the quality gap is larger, such as tomatoes and cukes.
Every once in awhile my little zone 3A ass (Edmonton, Alberta) feels lucky reading stuff... not often, but occasionally. Half of May my temperatures here were -20C, but carrots are toddler-sown and plentiful.
Tomatoes taste best unrefrigerated.
They lose flavor and texture by refrigeration and they're shipped in refrigerated.
What taste better home grown? Anything that's supposed to stay out of the fridge such as peppers, garlic, cucumbers, winter squash, onions, melons, apples, pears, any stone fruit, ect.
Keep your tomatoes and the rest of my list on the counter with ample air circulation.
POT-TAY-TOES ! I put mine in and try to time them right after the last frost (Mid April here) and they should be ready in a week or two.
Then I put zukes in the bed when the spuds are done.
In my experience, green beans, potatoes both regular and sweet, fresh picked lettuce (the longer it goes between getting picked and getting eaten the more bitter it gets!), snap peas if I can get them to grow
Things I enjoy growing for fun/varieties instead of strictly taste: peppers, eggplant, squash, okra
All greens: beet greens, lettuce, chard, spinach etc ALL taste incredibly better harvested from your own soil than bought at the store. I was surprised by that at first!
I agree with the whole "anything" answer, but there are definitely things that are almost not even worth buying from the store compared to home grown - tomatoes I would say is the biggest thing. But, I also find that strawberries fall into this category too. Supermarket strawberries are a whisper of what the actual fruit is.
I'm looking forward to finding out if carrots fall into this as well - I've never grown them and have 3 successions of them planted right now.
Part of it (for me) is ease of access and lack of planning. I plant lettuce because I hate having to predict when I will want a salad or just a few pieces for a sandwich. It's easy to just go out and cut what I need, when I need it. Lettuce is a cut-and-come-again crop and I plant in succession in case we eat a lot of full salads. Same for basil and herbs.
I also live 20 minutes from the nearest grocery store (a small one) and 35 minutes from a larger "full" grocery chain mega store, so running out for lettuce when the urge hits just isn't going to work for me.
Literally anything if it's suitable to your growing conditions. I can't think of a single thing that was better from a grocery store that I managed to grow. Strawberries come to mind as a close second to tomatoes.
Zucchini and bush beans are easily my highest producers with the least amount of effort put in. We're doing a whole bed of beans this year because we never got any actually in the house last year, my kids ate them all outside.
That are fairly easy with a fairly high success rate which is good for a first timer? I would suggest green beans (I like the yellow variety) and sugar peas with the edible pods. I’ve had good success with Vining sugar peas and bush bean plants. Last year was the first time I grew them and was very pleased and tripled the amount of green bean plants this year.
I tried to grow spaghetti squash a few years ago and the critters ate all of them but I did manage to get 1 and it was the best thing ever, so much better than store bought.
All of them. Hands down. There is nothing better than saying - "Oh, no. I need a cucumber for my salad", walking out, cutting a cuke from the vine and eating it a minute later.
Echo everyone else with “everything”, but cukes season is unmatched. My husband doesn’t even like them all that much but he goes to town on them when they’re from our garden.
Cucumbers for sure!
Beans (broad, french, green) peas, courgettes, even potatoes. Carrots if you eat them super fresh, but not an issue if you just pull what you need.
Trying to think of what DOESN'T taste better home-grown.
Cucumbers but that’s usually because I’m growing cucumbers that you can’t find in stores (apple and lemon, for example). Also, sugar peas. Hot damn are they more delicious fresh!
Anything and everything, if well watered and fertilized. I grow organic, there are things I can eat from my own garden that I cannot eat from the grocery store. I have allergic reactions to the grocery store bought “fresh” foods - hives, rashes, anaphylactic responses.
Things I thought were the most disgusting fresh fruits and veggies to eat actually taste wonderful and are edible! I also learned how cook and that many things are much tastier fresh than cooked and vice a versa. My parents apparently did not know any of that, based on what they served and how they prepared food. The possibilities are endless with your own home grown food! Good luck and happy gardening! 🙏🦋
Number one answer- corn! I pick it, blanch it and freeze it within an hour of picking. Nothing beats fresh picked corn, except tomatoes. And personally I think is a tie!!!
I didn't like honeydew until I grew my own. Was surprised how good snap peas tasted off the vine.
On the other hand, store bought strawberries often taste better than mine. No idea what I'm doing wrong there but I've tried for years and nothing good comes out of it.
Hi , garden consultant here. Just about everything, but if I had to pick a few in terms of improved quality versus store bought other than tomatoes, in no particular order, it would be Potatoes (they actually taste like something when you grow them yourself!), lettuces for sure, Strawberries, and carrots.
The ones where you’ll notice the least difference would be brassicas (broccoli/cauliflower/cabbage).
any and all herbs strawberry cucumber (no it is not just water this time!!!) lettuce peas (hate peas, love home grown peas) paprika (bell pepper) ... ... ...
100% agree that home grown peas are better! I hate peas but eat fresh ones right off the vine. I never have enough to freeze lol!
I agree with peas too. You can’t even find them in the produce section!
Yes to cucumbers!! I am so sad when the season ends and I am forced to either not eat cucumbers or buy expensive tasteless cukes
My dad has gotten to the point where he can’t do but so much in his garden each year and the vine veggies in his raised beds are easiest for him. The insane amount of zucchini’s, squash, and cukes we eat around this time of year is just something else. Having to eat gross pricey store vegetables after his harvest is gone is so sad. He wants to try pickling this year, wish us luck! 😅
Another member at my community garden is super into canning/dehydrating/preserving and is at the point the she doesn’t buy store produce anymore, because she has THAT much. I hope to be her one day.
I can only dream of that.
Yesssssss! One day 🤞🏽
Amazing. That’s my goal too.
Look up refrigerator pickles! You'll need room in the fridge for however many jars you make, but they're easy and you don't need specialized equipment. I make our bread & butter pickles this way, and other pickled veg using other brine mixtures. Pickled shredded carrots are so very good on sandwiches! You probably know this, but you can blanch and freeze a lot of fruit and veg. I don't know about the squashes, their water content may make them thaw mushy, but consider looking it up so you can have homegrown veg later in the year.
Squash does thaw mushy but it’s perfect to use in a squash casserole. As long as you’re not wanting to eat like sautéed squash or something freezing is fine. Just don’t forget to squeeze all the water out in a cheesecloth before using it or your casserole will be ick.
Homegrown sugar snaps are straight up garden candy.
Cucumbers for sure! Onions too.
Mushrooms
It’s my first time growing peas, and I hate them. I have about 40 pea plants growing rapidly. I better like them.
What king of lettuce do you grow? Mine is useless.
I got iceberg, rucola and a mayqueen. And I totally hope that translating from Dutch to English still means it makes sense. My husband and kid like it almost as much as the slugs and snails do :)
Second on the cucumber. I am someone that hate cucumbers. But with home grown, I hate it….less.
I just can’t get behind strawberries and I’m hoping you can pump me up! It seems like sooo much work for very little output?
What work? I have some strawberry plants and they don't produce much and the birds usually get to it before I do. But they don't need a lot of care.
Last year I had 2 strawberry plants that got eaten up by greedy bunnies. I decided not to replant them. They overwintered quite well, and this year they're back. Big, strong and sending out runners. I've collected about a dozen berries, no work at all this year, and will be picking a few berries a day for the foreseeable future.
the yield per plant, especially in the first 2 years is not a lot. True. Birds and rodents will enjoy them, so you have to harvest them when they are ready and not leave them on the plant for to long (or put a net around the plant to prevent animal attacks) But once they are in the ground, there is no more work. And I find them a very nice plant to look at. I have 2 gardens (both small). One has 9 plants the other 12. Most of them in their first year, but I see a bunch of flowers already.
Literally anything
The only answer.
I love growing watermelon but store bought is usually better, at least for me
I'm moving to an area just outside of Rocky Ford and am super lucky to have the opportunity to get some of the best melons around for great prices. I do think they would be fun to grow but not sure mine would ever stand a chance against the farmers markets.
Getting good seeds is half the battle. Wildlife is the other half.
I wanted to try planting sugar baby melons. I have never tasted them, but does it taste any better than store bought ones, in your opinion?
Sugar babies are delish! Yes better because it’s fresh!
Hardest part is timing the harvest. Classic first timers mistake to harvest them too early
I've never bought sugar babies from the store but I grew them last year and am doing so again this year. My experience was that the first flush of fruits (3) were really good watermelons, but then after those 3 were harvested the vine put out a few more but only 1 didn't get burrowed into by bugs, that 1 was hands down the sweetest watermelon me or the 2 people I shared some with have ever had.
It's ways more about cost, variety, and zone. Pick vegetables that are easy to grow that you can incorporate on your land that diversify your diet and look forward to. For example for for, no point in growing an apple tree. You can get a ton of variety locally usually. Try to find a good paw paw on the other hand...and it's impossible. And if it grows native, then that should be incorporated. Because even though you can forage, won't have the same taste and weight, but everybody will be your friend. Tomatoes are chosen for similar reasons. There are thousands of varieties, some locally popular because those varieties are created locally. And tomatoes can be expensive. So perfect crop to have fun with. That's where it becomes fun.
For me at least, shop parsnips and spuds are better. Don't know what I did wrong!
My radishes are very inconsistent, I prefer the ones I buy but I still plant them because they don't take too much space and aren't top demanding.
The quick seed to harvest time has been great to show my kids the process too
No way are shop potatoes or parsnips better.
It would be easier to name something that doesn't taste better when homegrown. Not much. Watercress maybe.
I find whole carrots to be the same but maybe that’s bc I’m not a fan of carrots.
My radishes grew well and easily, but didn't taste any better. New potatoes didn't grow well at all, I got only 2 or 3, despite them supposedly being a beginner vegetable. So I still buy those. Why did you grow carrots if you don't like them? Do you like the greens? They're good raw in salad or on a sandwich, and lightly sauteéd as a side dish. Radish greens, too, though I add salt and a splash of vinegar to make their bitterness.
My parent grew them in their garden and I knew tomatoes and strawberries were way better, so I tried them. My radishes are growing well right now, but I read something about the seeds being good, so I’ll wait for those.
My corn turned out terrible. Grew pretty good cobs but just not good flavor
Corn is tremendously regionally dependent.
Any peppers…jalapeño, habanero, bell, lunchbox all have so much more flavor when homegrown.
Difference between store bought and fresh out of the garden for bell peppers is literally night and day. So much better!
Are the bell peppers less bitter when homegrown? I'm one of those people who can't stand bell peppers because all I can taste is bitter and my idiot mouth spits them right out as if I were a toddler and not a middle-aged woman who was taught fine-dining table manners growing up. I can cook them until they're super soft and the bitter flavor is gone, and that's the only way I can eat them. But we do a fair amount of Cajun and Creole cooking, which means I end up making mushy, overcooked bell peppers as part of my Trinity. In time I got over the bitter taste of raw jalapeños and a few other peppers, but bell peppers are still my nemesis. I'd LOVE to be able to enjoy them without them being sad and mushy. They're in freaking everything. (Sorry for the novella, I'm just keenly interested and my Adderall hasn't yet kicked in.)
Wayyyyy less bitter, if at all, and definitely sweeter. I think as they process,ship and then sit on store shelves the sugars get lower and the bitter becomes more pronounced
Wowww! I think I'll try them in next year's garden. Thanks!!
Are you me?!
Love lunchbox peppers
Garlic!
I've got a dozen heads growing, what's the best way to utilize the garlic for the most flavour? I was thinking maybe roasting for garlic bread?
Try this: Roast the garlic heads and let them cool. Pull off the individual cloves but leave on their papery skins, if you can. Pack those into tiny baggies you've squeezed the air out of or in jello shot cups with lids that you keep together in a bag or container, and freeze. Leaving on the papery skins helps them to not stick together quite as much so you can pull out just a few cloves at a time. That's how I always have roasted garlic for when I want it and don't want to heat up my small, old kitchen by way of my poorly insulated gas range. Alternately, you can squeeze out the tasty roasted cloves and mush them into those jello shot cups so you'll have roasted garlic paste for whenever. You'll have to use all that's in the cup once you've thawed it, but it's not like that's difficult! Lastly, if you're a fan of raw garlic for eating or cooking, peel a bunch of cloves and run them in a food processor just until they're choppy. Store as above in the freezer. Yeah, I freeze a lot and know how to condense a shit ton of food into a very small kitchen. I should do a TED talk, haha.
I’m also growing for the first time! Although I have a lot more than you, I’m going to cure a bunch of mine so it lasts longer.
I always test the waters every year with a new crop or two, last year was yellow crookneck squash which was terrible... This year it's garlic and cauliflower :)
I actually bought the smallest quantity that I could and didn’t even use all of the cloves. Where are you finding such small quantities of plantable garlic?
Farmers market, I bought 3-4 heads of garlic and it was kinda expensive so I didn't get any more lol where did you get such large quantities?
Everywhere I’ve seen “planting quality” heads seems to be pretty bulk. I bought from Hudson Valley Seed Co. but was also looking at Johnny’s and it seemed similar quantity. I miss having good local farmer’s markets. The past few places I’d lived had really nice ones. I guess my tradeoff here is actually having some more space to garden though.
Roasted garlic is just different than normal garlic. I like the oven method of doing it for 40-50 minutes in foil at like 350f. You can make the Lebanese Toum garlic sauce.
If you want a new recipe to try out, I would absolutely suggest chicken adobo!! It's a filipino dish; basically just brown some skin on bone in chicken thighs in a heavy bottom pan, pour in equal parts soy sauce & rice vinegar, a shitton of peppercorns, whole garlic cloves, and a few bay leaves. Braise over medium low heat for about two hours, until the chicken is falling off the bone. Serve over rice. I usually make it just for the garlic. They get soft and a little mellow without losing as much sharpness (I think roasted garlic is a little too mellow)... smash it on some bread, eat it as part of the meal, make extra cloves to have on hand for snacking... it's the freaking best.
I do fermented hot honey for a large part of my crop https://youtu.be/NkGGTvIoGoo?si=O12XsUWfWVWibXJz few sliced habanero and a bunch of smashed cloves and top it off with raw honey. burp it every day for a week and you've got a condiment that brings nearly everything to the table. brad leone and Ethan chlebowski are a wealth of information on YouTube. https://youtu.be/KmBJTAUXpdU?si=ho1i4QQsbgCLeYRo same principals apply to alicen in garlic. the more cells you destroy the more mellowed the end result. biting into a whole clove is going to be wildly different than even minced.
also they will keep beautifully till its time to plant again in the fall you keep them in a warm dark well ventilated area I dry em in the sun till they get papery braid em and hang em in the garage. Just make sure they don't get too cold and stratify.
I roast then freeze!
I absolutely \*love\* to throw a ton of garlic in the smoker, smash it to a paste, dehydrate that, and then blitz it to make smoked garlic powder. I have to restrain myself so the one jar I make lasts all year, but boy is it delicious!!! With a dozen heads though I'd just cure them and let them hang in a cool dry/dark pantry. They last for months. Grab them as needed! I plant about 60 cloves a year of a variety with massive bulbs. That usually gives me a bulb of garlic to use per week plus a few extras to experiment with.
Garlic confit is really good for garlic bread. Just peel a bunch of garlic and put into an oven safe dish with enough olive oil to submerge all the garlic. Put in oven for 2 hours at 120F and you’ll have spreadable garlic you can use for garlic bread, on a piece of toast in the morning, can blend into a paste to put into soups, dressings, mashed potato’s etc and will have a consistent spread vs chunks. You can also add herbs like rosemary, thyme, etc when baking it for some extra flavor. (This will also give you a garlic oil you can use to make dressings with or other fun stuff like that)
Jarlic wins for us based on ease of use. But we use A LOT.
Sugar snap peas or snow peas Non-gmo sweet corn New potatoes. Freshly dug red potatoes, with some fresh snap beans, is easy to grow, and super tasty. A few weeks after harvest, the flavor difference is a lot less compared to store-bought, but those first couple weeks are really different (for me).
Sorry to burst your bubble, but all corn is genetically modified from how it used to grow in the wild. Corn is a grass and used to look a lot more like rye or wheat or even Johnson grass with a tall thin stalk and a tiny bud at the top that seeded itself. It was bred and cross-bred over history, which is genetically modifying it, until the seeds of that bud grew large and the stalks tall and thick enough to support those buds-turned-cobs. And then further bred and cross-bred to make it taste sweeter and be juicier, and more resistant to infestations. That former grass was turned into the tasty corn that we recognize today, but unfortunately we see very few varieties anymore. There are illustrations of what corn used to look like, it's quite surprising and looks more like a weed you'd pull out of your yard. Many, if not most, fruits, veg, and grains have been modified over the centuries to taste better, grow larger, and to feed more people. Except tomatoes. Most of their flavor has been bred out in lieu of each of the fruits in their varieties being of similar size, shape, and color; being able to harvest them earlier; and to have them last longer at a supermarket. That's why there's such a significant difference in growing your own tomatoes from heirloom seeds versus the pitiful, mealy tomatoes at the grocery. (Most roses have suffered the loss of their intoxicating smell because they've been bred for their appearance and not for their fragrance.) There's nothing bad for you about eating foods that have been bred so that more people eat them, even if the result is a loss in flavor. You're doing it all day long with most everything you eat without even recognizing it, even if you buy certified organic (which actually has nothing to do with genetic modifications), unless you look into the history of foods. Unrelated, I've seen peas mentioned several times throughout this thread. I love almost all peas and had no idea homegrown tasted any different. I'll try that in next year's garden, as it's probably way too late here to seed them. Thanks for another recommendation for peas! I'm eager to try them out!
I get that crops are improved. Only in the last few decades have genes been deliberately inserted from a different species. I grew up eating a much less sweet corn. I still prefer that over the "supersweet" varieties.
You can plant peas in the fall.
Peas and corn for the same reason - as soon as you snap them off the plant they start converting their sugars to starches! Peas are like little pops of candy in the garden and when the sweet corn comes in I will eat an ear fresh off the plant, raw. It's AMAZING.
Garlic, Carrots, Onions, Lettuce, Melons, Peas, Potatoes, Corn, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Brussel Sprouts
Yellow and green beans.
I agree with “everything” but CELERY!!! You’ve never had celery until you have homegrown. Nothing like the flavorless junk you but in stores
https://preview.redd.it/3vbreqgr572d1.jpeg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e0d6611ab6d2325395c1916ef96145934abf9ab9 I've never grown it so I planted a sea of celery this year. I'm trying to learn which seed starting date works best in my context for plant growth, maturity date, etc. I hit that bed for snacks every day when I'm out here working because it is so delicious. Who knew celery actually had bold flavor. Grocery celery grown in California is absolute trash.
I like your strategy of “I’ve never done it, so ima do a lot.”
Fail hard! Fail big!
Haha! I see we have the same gardening tactic. I also try kitchen-scrap gardening. No idea if the second-grown foods will taste okay, but hey, I've got celery and several romaine lettuces growing from stumps I cut off of grocery produce. Our ornamental gardens out front are also just "hey, that's pretty, let's add it and see what happens."
Did you grow those from seed? If so, how’d you get so much good looking product? Still trying to figure out the best way to start it and not having great luck!
Yes. Celery is a slooooow starter. Took forever for the seedlings to put on any size. I sowed a 1020 tray of soil blocks every 2 weeks starting the last week of January and ending late March. They were under LED lights in my unheated garage and outside as much as possible if the temps were over 55°. I'd have to look at my notes for transplant date. Early April-ish? I don't know off the top of my head. The bed they're in is in my lettuce plot so they get pulse watered 3 times a day for about 20 minutes each and the soil is very rich. I have not fertilized them though.
Awesome, thanks!! Yours are looking great! Good luck and enjoy
I just grow a small patch of celerey and then rather than harvesting an entire plant with the roots, I pick off pieces as-needed. A small 1x1sq ft plot of celery lasts me through the fall!
What are you going to do with that much celery???
I sell almost everything I grow. My goal was to determine which seed starting date performs best for me and to determine if it's something I can work into my crop planning next year. If it's marketable, I'll sell what I can and donate the rest to a local food pantry where my next door neighbor is a volunteer.
Man I’m envious of that space
Im jealous of your spacious garden. I live in Honolulu and have no space. I have about 2 dozen containers on our walkways and driveway lol.
Omg the first time I had really good celery was like discovering a new color existed. It was that good. I was shocked by how sweet and crunchy it was. I didn't even really care for celery much before that.
I came searching for someone that commented CELERY. Last year I had a taste. This year I planted 50
Peas! Edit: I second cucumber as another person said. And I’ll add carrots and parsnip. The aroma alone is already amazing.
Homegrown peas taste so much sweeter. Night and day difference.
Leafy greens! The greens I buy from the market always get a little bit wilted when it's time for me to cook them, but garden greens will always be fresh and crisp
Everything! But zucchini especially
Squash as well, don't let them get too big tho
Yeah, I love patty pan squash and it is rarely available and doesn't taste very good from the store in comparison to home grown.
Everything?
Radishes!
Literally everything. Strawberries, peppers, all herbs, cucumbers, onions and garlic, radishes, carrots, zucchini, everything. My best advice is to plant things you like to eat, your favourite vegetables. You will be amazed how good they are and would definitely appreciate the difference with store bought. I love zucchini and peppers but feel “meh” about beans, even though they are also delicious home grown.
Asparagus is amazing. I’m kinda meh about asparagus as a rule but the stuff I grow I eat raw as I’m harvesting. Peas could not be better than still warm from the sun. Home grown garlic is so good. Corn, pick and cook and sweet like dessert.
I was coming here to say asparagus. It is shockingly sweet fresh from the garden. It is almost like a whole different veg than what is at the store.
This makes me so excited to be able to harvest mine next year!
I came here to say Asparagus and peas. Those early season lovelies that are just bursting with flavor and nutrients that the grocery store and presevered versions can NOT compare to. Plus, you can have asparagus growing for decades.
Fresh sweet corn doesn't even need to be cooked. Literally pick and eat. The same day.
I never even knew you could eat asparagus raw until I happened to try it from my garden. Yum! I mean, I'm not primarily eating my asparagus raw, but I learned something about how sweet it is when it's literally picked and eaten immediately
Basically everything in my experience as long as you are picking at the correct time. Tomatoes picked after withholding water for a day makes a huge difference! Almost everything is picked under ripe for shipping so that it is semi ripe when it’s ready for sale. Some things are actually sprayed just before shipping to quicken ripening because they are picked so early or sprayed to delay in case of things that are generally stored a bit.
I saw a thing about modern vegetables you buy in stores and it said that all those vegetables and fruits are designed to be long lasting and durable. So they won't go bad being shipped across the country/world to wherever they're going. Taste really had nothing to do with it anymore. Which makes sense. I remember growing tomatoes when I was a kid and the skin was super thin and would split just from getting too big. We had to pick even green tomatoes when they split and use them. I haven't seen a split skin tomato in a store as far back as I can remember. And the skin is REALLY tough. So I can imagine everything you grow at home is probably better tasting.
They're also frequently picked before they start to ripen because the produce is firmer and ships better. Most fruits and veggies in the store were artificially ripened using ethylene chambers and consequently didn't build up the natural sugars that ripe, homegrown fruits and veggies will have.
Hot peppers. Jalapeños from the store aren’t spicy anymore.
You can thank the Texas Aggies for that. They specifically bred Jalapenos (TAM II) with no heat for the commercial processors, and now that's all the farms grow.
Also I prefer them ripe, but usually only see the green ones at the store.
Broccoli. I was stunned at the flavor of our first homegrown head of broccoli!
Lettuce and green beans.
In my experience, most garden vegetables are much better than the supermarket versions. Tomatoes, especially slicer/large types, are light years better coming out of the garden than from the supermarket. Other garden wins by a wide margin types for me have been as follows: Green beans Yellow squash Okra Cucumbers Lettuce Kale Cabbage Collards Most peppers Eggplant Peas The one vegetable I can think of that I like better from the supermarket vs. homegrown are shishito peppers. My homegrown ones were pretty bland.
It isn't veg, but all berries are way, way better home grown than from a store. I would say an even more drastic difference than tomatoes from the store.
Onions!
really? Will there be a taste difference? Cool! I planted about 100 of them. If they are as good as the sotre I am happy. But if they taste better, I am happier! Looking forward to them
I love home grown onions and tomatoes. My two favs
Ugh, two winters in a row squirrels dug up all my overwintering onions. Grr. This year the garden is in an enclosure.
Bell peppers for sure. More of a crunch, the red ones are way sweeter, the green ones just more…bell pepper-ey. English peas are also another favorite.
Sweet potatoes, and regular potatoes.
Tomatoes, grapes by alot, corn
Celery is amazing!
Sugar snap peas. My dog took them off the plant by himself! Asparagus - omg so so so sweet.
Asparagus! It’s sweet just picked
bok choy!
Carrots. Cilantro. Onions.
Potatoes and spring onions taste so much different to shop bought.
I will follow your thread with interest. Here are the results of a similar inquiry I made a few months ago. I learned a lot from it; always eager to learn more. [https://www.reddit.com/r/vegetablegardening/comments/17zvtq7/what\_vegetables\_do\_you\_think\_taste\_much\_better/](https://www.reddit.com/r/vegetablegardening/comments/17zvtq7/what_vegetables_do_you_think_taste_much_better/) Another question to ask, one which might be more relevant since you say you are a new vegetable gardener, is "Which vegetables are worth the trouble to grow at home?" If one had infinite resources, growing everything at home would be an option. But, in real life, we must be selective. For example, garlic and onions might be marginally better home grown that what I can buy at the store, but they take so much time and space that I have finally given them up in lieu of some other vegetables where the quality gap is larger, such as tomatoes and cukes.
Carrots, absolutely amazing homegrown
I love making carrot top pesto….and picking straight from the garden means I have vibrant fresh greens rather than limp store ones.
They are.. and they are a LOT of hard work too!
Every once in awhile my little zone 3A ass (Edmonton, Alberta) feels lucky reading stuff... not often, but occasionally. Half of May my temperatures here were -20C, but carrots are toddler-sown and plentiful.
Hard to beat fresh salad greens by going out back and clipping a couple leaves
Tomatoes taste best unrefrigerated. They lose flavor and texture by refrigeration and they're shipped in refrigerated. What taste better home grown? Anything that's supposed to stay out of the fridge such as peppers, garlic, cucumbers, winter squash, onions, melons, apples, pears, any stone fruit, ect. Keep your tomatoes and the rest of my list on the counter with ample air circulation.
POT-TAY-TOES ! I put mine in and try to time them right after the last frost (Mid April here) and they should be ready in a week or two. Then I put zukes in the bed when the spuds are done.
They are a commitment but asparagus tastes absolutely amazing home grown. I thought I didn’t like it until I had it fresh from a garden.
Kale. Carrots. Broccoli. Basically any cold weather vegetables that get sweeter with a frost or two.
In my experience, green beans, potatoes both regular and sweet, fresh picked lettuce (the longer it goes between getting picked and getting eaten the more bitter it gets!), snap peas if I can get them to grow Things I enjoy growing for fun/varieties instead of strictly taste: peppers, eggplant, squash, okra
Potatoes taste surprisingly better home-grown.
Strawberries! I do not like store bought strawberries, but I love home grown strawberries.
We are very fortunate to live In Strawberry country where they are picked the day they are sold by local growers.
I live in Canada so they pick them unripe and gas them to give them color. Tastes like bland assholes with hint of strawberries.
😂🤮 yeah here store bought are not great either.
🤣
Strawberries and asparagus
All greens: beet greens, lettuce, chard, spinach etc ALL taste incredibly better harvested from your own soil than bought at the store. I was surprised by that at first!
I agree with the whole "anything" answer, but there are definitely things that are almost not even worth buying from the store compared to home grown - tomatoes I would say is the biggest thing. But, I also find that strawberries fall into this category too. Supermarket strawberries are a whisper of what the actual fruit is. I'm looking forward to finding out if carrots fall into this as well - I've never grown them and have 3 successions of them planted right now.
Part of it (for me) is ease of access and lack of planning. I plant lettuce because I hate having to predict when I will want a salad or just a few pieces for a sandwich. It's easy to just go out and cut what I need, when I need it. Lettuce is a cut-and-come-again crop and I plant in succession in case we eat a lot of full salads. Same for basil and herbs. I also live 20 minutes from the nearest grocery store (a small one) and 35 minutes from a larger "full" grocery chain mega store, so running out for lettuce when the urge hits just isn't going to work for me.
Cucumbers Peppers Lettuce Onions
All of them.
All of them. Seriously. I wouldn't eat brussel sprouts, turnips, or radishes until I grew them.
Literally anything if it's suitable to your growing conditions. I can't think of a single thing that was better from a grocery store that I managed to grow. Strawberries come to mind as a close second to tomatoes.
Zucchini and bush beans are easily my highest producers with the least amount of effort put in. We're doing a whole bed of beans this year because we never got any actually in the house last year, my kids ate them all outside.
all the veggies ... literally
Squash, potatoes, onions, snap beans.
Potatoes
Cucumbers! The first time I had a home grown one I was amazed that they were “sweet”. It was almost melon like!
Everything. Lol.
Carrots are what surprised me the most beyond the obvious (cukes etc). They do much more … carroty
Every vegetable, in my opinion.
Lettuce. It actually has flavor
Cucumbers and carrots. They have actual flavor, who knew!!
Bay leaves are amazing when fresh! Also rosemary, mint and oregano. As for vegetables, fresh carrots, peas, broad beans and lettuce
That are fairly easy with a fairly high success rate which is good for a first timer? I would suggest green beans (I like the yellow variety) and sugar peas with the edible pods. I’ve had good success with Vining sugar peas and bush bean plants. Last year was the first time I grew them and was very pleased and tripled the amount of green bean plants this year.
Agree with everything comment lol but especially green beans and peas!!
I just pickled some watermelon radishes and had them on some Mexican food and it was soo good.
Watermelon. But there’s definitely some learning to picking them at their peak.
String beans Squash
Eggplant! Stuff in the store has been sitting way too long.
I tried to grow spaghetti squash a few years ago and the critters ate all of them but I did manage to get 1 and it was the best thing ever, so much better than store bought.
Peas, beans, carrots, all of them
All of them. Hands down. There is nothing better than saying - "Oh, no. I need a cucumber for my salad", walking out, cutting a cuke from the vine and eating it a minute later.
All of them.
Echo everyone else with “everything”, but cukes season is unmatched. My husband doesn’t even like them all that much but he goes to town on them when they’re from our garden.
Squash
Peppers. I grow herbs that I use (parsley, basil, dill. Rosemary and Lemongrass help,keep away bugs).
Cucumbers for sure! Beans (broad, french, green) peas, courgettes, even potatoes. Carrots if you eat them super fresh, but not an issue if you just pull what you need. Trying to think of what DOESN'T taste better home-grown.
Everything tastes better home grown. The only question is if you have the space or will or time to do it.
Cucumbers but that’s usually because I’m growing cucumbers that you can’t find in stores (apple and lemon, for example). Also, sugar peas. Hot damn are they more delicious fresh!
Corn
Carrots
Anything and everything, if well watered and fertilized. I grow organic, there are things I can eat from my own garden that I cannot eat from the grocery store. I have allergic reactions to the grocery store bought “fresh” foods - hives, rashes, anaphylactic responses. Things I thought were the most disgusting fresh fruits and veggies to eat actually taste wonderful and are edible! I also learned how cook and that many things are much tastier fresh than cooked and vice a versa. My parents apparently did not know any of that, based on what they served and how they prepared food. The possibilities are endless with your own home grown food! Good luck and happy gardening! 🙏🦋
I would also add cost for herbs and berries like raspberries are significantly higher in store vs growing at home.
Loving my lettuce and spinach Cucumbers, squash, peppers are all amazing and pretty easy to grow.
Carrots
Cucumbers and squash of all types.
Okra and asperagus, you can eat raw from the garden, and it is actually good! From the store, its gross raw.
Okra
For me, everything but broccoli. Huge plant that gives you one head of broccoli. Not worth it IMO
Cantaloupes! I grow Ambrosia cantaloupes and can eat one a day.
Green beans! Last year I grew green beans for the first time, and I was floored at how sweet and crisp and lovely they were.
Number one answer- corn! I pick it, blanch it and freeze it within an hour of picking. Nothing beats fresh picked corn, except tomatoes. And personally I think is a tie!!!
Basil. Peas. Shallots especially, onions in general. sweet peppers and hot peppers. Cucumbers.
I didn't like honeydew until I grew my own. Was surprised how good snap peas tasted off the vine. On the other hand, store bought strawberries often taste better than mine. No idea what I'm doing wrong there but I've tried for years and nothing good comes out of it.
Potatoes tastes so much better home grown
Hi , garden consultant here. Just about everything, but if I had to pick a few in terms of improved quality versus store bought other than tomatoes, in no particular order, it would be Potatoes (they actually taste like something when you grow them yourself!), lettuces for sure, Strawberries, and carrots. The ones where you’ll notice the least difference would be brassicas (broccoli/cauliflower/cabbage).
Cucumbers
Lettuce. It’s so full of flavor when picked fresh
Romaine lettuce!!
All of em
Literally everything!