Winter shortage of veg

We eat turnips in salad, picked when they're about golf ball size. They're crisp, juicy, slightly sweet and taste a bit like melon. Toyko Cross is a great, white variety.

Speaking of sweetness, I've noticed it's the first thing to disappear in fruit and veg on a supermarket shelf. A lot of things freshly picked from the garden taste much sweeter to me than anything from a shop. Savoy cabbage for example, cooked a few hours after it was harvested, was really sweet, whereas the stuff from the supermarket is completely bland.

There aren't many things from a supermarket that I actually enjoy eating on their own. When you've tasted fresh produce there's just no comparison.

Supermarket tomatoes are not even worth talking about. 

I was thinking much the same thing today, TMTT. I gathered a few leaves from about 6 different types of greens, brought them into the kitchen, cooked them immediately. They were "alive" unlike the limp leaves you find in the supermarket.

Strangely, I was in Aldi today and they had various packsof tomatoes in abundance at cheap prices. After paying 89p for six supposed salad tomatoes,I thought I would give one a try sliced in a cheese and tomato sandwich.

Tough as auld boots and totally devoid of taste it was!!!

I honestly think I've never had a really good tasting tomato from a supermarket. At best, during the summer, they're about as tasty as end of season home grown. The rest of the year they are bland and lacking in sweet/acid balance.

The growers and supermarkets have got a preference for thicker skinned tomatoes now because they can sit on a shelf for longer and are less likely to be damaged during picking/packing/transport.

They're also picked under ripe so that they can continue ripening on their journey to the supermarket and while sitting in a plastic box waiting for their Use By date to expire.
The opposite of our homegrown tomatoes, ripened in the sun and picked when they are exactly right to eat.
Shop tomatoes don't have that evocative smell or turn your hands green either.

They're also picked under ripe so that they can continue ripening on their journey to the supermarket and while sitting in a plastic box waiting for their Use By date to expire.
The opposite of our homegrown tomatoes, ripened in the sun and picked when they are exactly right to eat.
Shop tomatoes don't have that evocative smell  or turn your hands green either.

You've sold me on the homegrown version veggie!

Its the same with strawberries, don't you think? Hard, pale, tasteless lumps of pink chalk compared to the rich, ripe, juicy red, sun-warm fruits that you pick from the plant and eat immediately.
A lot of the pleasure of growing our own is being able to do this. I'd much rather wait until tomatoes and strawberries are in season that buy the imported imposters that the shops sell.

I don't really want to eat strawberries all year round anyway. Some of the pleasure of growing your own is the anticipation and short harvest window. When the strawberries are finished there's always blackcurrants, blueberries, gooseberries, raspberries...

It was inevitable, I suppose. A shortage of veg makes people buy seeds to grow their own. A good thing in the long term, of course. .
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64811491

How many people will be sowing cucs and tomatoes now without a clue what to do with them before the end of frosts.