Best picked fresh versus bought

[muck lover]

Any salad leaf. French beans cooked fresh.
There’s a huge psychological factor for me in eating home grown produce. Sometimes I’m not sure if they taste better simply due to pride and satisfaction in growing them.
I do agree regarding production methods. I believe home grown veg are more nutritious due to freshness but also growing in fertile mineral rich soil may improve nutrition as well as flavour. And then there are the chemicals sprayed on our food. I do worry.

[Guest]

No one seems to have mentioned the good ole leek!

My mother in law grew them one year but pulled them and gave them to us. She left them in her cold store and in the morning she thought they had gone off how do the shops get the smell out of them as well as the flavour?

[Thelma Sanders]

Best freshly picked - sweetcorn and tomatoes as you've already said, don't think anyone's mentioned cucumbers - which are perfect just picked- unlike the slightly bitter ones from the s/market. Same with the salad leaves and whole lettuce.
Also peas, beans, sweet cabbage (for coleslaw), calabrese, huge sweet white onions.
Freshly dug new and salad potatoes. I don't grow maincrop any more, but this year I wish I had - most of the store bought ones are awful
My soil is good for swede, and they don't get that bitter taste that some have - so I grow as many as I've room for, plus leeks dug and used before they start to go soft.
My squash - because you can't buy the varieties that I like to eat - it's as simple as that!
Soft fruits - raspberries, Tayberries, Loganberries, Boysenberries, pink gooseberries, Oregon Thornless blackberry plus Timperley Early Rhubarb.

The crops that the s/markets can grow or store better much than me are carrots, maincrop potatoes (usually) and onions.

[Snadger]

Carrots pulled out of the bed, earth rubbed off and eaten straight away must be a delicacy that cannot be matched by any other carrot.

And I agree, any type of raspberry so fresh it's barely in your hand for two seconds.... yum!

Totally agree with above and I only eat sweetcorn raw at the plot.Luckily my OH doesn't like sweetcorn so I don't feel bad about it.

[ESBkevin]

There is little to compare to walking in the veg patch and picking stuff right before cooking it. New potatoes and peas with mint for example, less than an hour to the plate. Once picked there are changes of sugars and starches in the fruit, we just don't notice it if we only ever get supermarket foods.
We tend to leave things like carrots in the soil until wanter too, such a great way to store then fresh.

[greenishfing]

No one seems to have mentioned the good ole leek!

My mother in law grew them one year but pulled them and gave them to us. She left them in her cold store and in the morning she thought they had gone off how do the shops get the smell out of them as well as the flavour?

That's a question I'd like to know the answer to. On the way home from the allotment my car often smells really strongly. Leeks, onions, and strawberries can overpower. And Rosemary twigs can drive me mad.

[bikermike]

I think anything picked fresh tastes better than an equivalent that is kept.
I didn't know carrots had a smell until I grew them for the first time.

I have been eating broccoli florets fresh off the plant when raw - amazing.

I'd say that if you are pushed for space, it's things you can store that I'd not grow, as they tend to be less better. That being said, I really like pink fir apple potatoes, and you can't always get them in the shops, so if there is a specific kind of turnip etc that you like, then better to grow yourself.

Equally, anything you cook loses more of it's difference, especially the longer you cook it, and the softer the fruit, the more likely it is picked early to make it easier to transport.

I think if I had space for one plant only, it would be strawberries

[Sweet savory]

Another yes for carrots! Straight from the container to the steamer or grated in salad. Recently a few people have commented to me that they have stopped buying s’market carrots as they don’t taste of carrot any more or indeed anything much at all.
Also purple sprouting, runner beans and lettuce I pick to use straight away while other things can languish in the fridge for a couple of days and I notice no problem taste wise eg parsnip, fennel and cabbage.

[rary]

As said salad leaves taste better fresh, along with pea shoots I can't eat shop bought cucumber but enjoy home grown , early potatoes definitely taste better just out the ground, though as muck lover has said I also think the soil makeup with minerals etc. contributes to making all homegrown fruit and veg taste better

[Robinahood]

Sun warmed, properly ripe melons were a revelation this year! Supermarket fruit are picked for transportation rather than readiness to eat.

[spamvindaloo]

The obvious one is tomatoes, most supermarket tomatoes are tasteless. Most berries plus my favourite are tayberries and I've never seen one of them in a supermarket. First early potatoes and peas fresh from the pod.

I'd grow everything if I could but there are things like onions which I go through lots of and could never grow enough of plus I don't think the onions in shops are all that bad.

[carolefu]

I have to say fresh herbs. They taste so much different than bought from the supermarket. And carrots definitely - will be growing them next year. And I must say tomatoes, still on the vine

[Snoop Puss]

Goodness, VC. How are you going to choose? Looks like we think that most things taste better when freshly picked. I agree with everyone (ever the diplomat... not). So of the things I've had most recently:

I have been eating broccoli florets fresh off the plant when raw - amazing.

Totally agree. I made Mr Snoop eat some raw yesterday and he agreed with me: as good as fresh peas. One of the dogs was whining because she wanted some too.

Other winter veg recently eaten: cauliflower and cabbage. Miles better just picked. And yes, the dogs love cauliflower (and the veins in the leaves), though only one will eat cabbage raw.