Great post! We really do appreciate the things we do ourselves and don't have any appreciation for stuff that is bought for cheap.
Also, it is sometimes impossible to go to the store and buy the same vegetable. One case is tomatoes. I can go to all the best supermarkets in Seattle area and even to Farmers Markets later in summer and buy their best heirloom tomatoes, but for some reason the supermarket ones don't taste anywhere near as good as the ones grown by me and even farmers market ones tend to be very inferior with maybe a few exceptions that basically is the same variety of a tomato and was picked at the exact time of ripeness and hasn't laid around too long.
So basically that is the reason why I grow my own tomatoes. I like to have control of having exactly right assortment of heirloom tomatoes that are picked at the exact time of ripeness and consumed promptly :)
I guess you can call me Tomato Connoisseur LOL
I know what you mean about the different tastes. Here the cucumbers grown in Finland taste completely different to the ones (same variety) grown elsewhere, like Spain. Same for tomatoes and definitely for strawberries. Our neighbours have brilliant raspberries at the end of summer, and we go over and steal some (with their permission) - but we normally go and pick our own strawberries and raspberries from the farms. They are great here.
The only thing that is really good in our yard to eat at the moment, are the cherries. But hopefully we will get more things started this year!
BTW in my experience raspberries are very easy to grow. Easier than strawberries for example.