I tend to grow veggies I can't get in shops or which are ludicrously expensive - esp soft fruits. Very hard to find good chllies here and kale is rare and Cavolo Nero and Purple SB non existent.
Fennel from the garden beats shop bought fennel hands down. Much stronger flavour. I grow tomato varieties not easily found in shops altho, round here, there's a good range of marmande/beef type tomatoes and cherry and plum that I rarely saw in Belgium but they're soft and flabby and vague compared to my own.
Even rhubarb is tired and flabby by the time it hits the SM or market stalls here. On the other hand, there are very good carrots grown not far away so I don't bother growing them myself.
Asparagus is mostly that flabby white stuff so I have planted some proper green ones but, in the meantime, expect to pay 3 or 4€ for a bunch of maybe 18 green stems. Roll on the day that mine are big enough to harvest.
And, I know what's gone into and on all my fruit and veg - no chemicals.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
I can buy good parsnips (panais) here and in Belgium but yes, most French people think they are fodder for beasts, a bit like swedes and turnips and sugar beet in the UK were used to keep cattle fed in winter.
I made a parsnip cake for my patch ladies last winter but didn't tell them what it was till they'd tasted and liked it.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
I completely agree with @Skandi, I've never tasted a store tomato that comes even close to my home grown ones. Same with strawberries, the store ones are watery bland nastiness, compared to home grown. That said I don't really bother with carrots or onions any more, as I can't tell any difference. I grow a row of carrots and that's it. As for things eating crops, I don't have much trouble with it. I live next to farm and woodland (as in, immediately outside my gate/fence), so I get stacks of animals from birds to squirrels and hedgehogs etc. A bit of trial and error with some nets, and making sure I plant out plugs of the tasty stuff instead of seed, and I don't have a problem.
As for insects, my view is that unless you're buying hydroponic crops grown in controlled warehouses, everything you eat will have had an insect on it at some point. The difference is that store veg has been covered in chemicals, whereas home veg is just washed thoroughly. I'd rather wash and remove bugs you can see, than eat veg sprayed with chemicals you can't.
(Note, I do eat store veg, and of course you can wash chemicals off, i'm just pointing out that the issue is "visibility" - you wouldn't eat a bug and you wouldn't drink a pesticide, but people are conditioned to be more comfortable with the latter because they can't see it. I bet if DDT was bright neon pink and covered your supermarket lettuce, you wouldn't want to eat it!
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Fennel from the garden beats shop bought fennel hands down. Much stronger flavour. I grow tomato varieties not easily found in shops altho, round here, there's a good range of marmande/beef type tomatoes and cherry and plum that I rarely saw in Belgium but they're soft and flabby and vague compared to my own.
Even rhubarb is tired and flabby by the time it hits the SM or market stalls here. On the other hand, there are very good carrots grown not far away so I don't bother growing them myself.
Asparagus is mostly that flabby white stuff so I have planted some proper green ones but, in the meantime, expect to pay 3 or 4€ for a bunch of maybe 18 green stems. Roll on the day that mine are big enough to harvest.
And, I know what's gone into and on all my fruit and veg - no chemicals.
I made a parsnip cake for my patch ladies last winter but didn't tell them what it was till they'd tasted and liked it.
As for insects, my view is that unless you're buying hydroponic crops grown in controlled warehouses, everything you eat will have had an insect on it at some point. The difference is that store veg has been covered in chemicals, whereas home veg is just washed thoroughly. I'd rather wash and remove bugs you can see, than eat veg sprayed with chemicals you can't.
(Note, I do eat store veg, and of course you can wash chemicals off, i'm just pointing out that the issue is "visibility" - you wouldn't eat a bug and you wouldn't drink a pesticide, but people are conditioned to be more comfortable with the latter because they can't see it. I bet if DDT was bright neon pink and covered your supermarket lettuce, you wouldn't want to eat it!