There's a good amount of carrots out there a bit more tender and noticeably sweeter (and/or less bitter) than store-bought carrots...a lot of the better ones are the short-storage varieties that don't make it into the supermarket distribution because they don't keep as long or ship well.

Dark green cucumber are the best better tasting than store bought when they are home grown. yellow crookneck squash is great as well much sweeter than store bought when home grown. Now an odd one is lemon cucumbers round yellow cucumbers that have a nice tart lemony taste. They are SOOO good one of my favorites really. many carrots very in taste and how they are grown. but tender sweets are good and little fingers are good as well.

Here is a link that might be useful: TheItalian Garden

Simple to answer. No. Anything homegrown tastes much better than store-bought. If for no other reason than it will be days, if not weeks, fresher. Do you think anything sold at the store was picked that day or even that week?

Not to mention that there are 30x the variety selections for home-grown.

Dave

This one is for Pat. Ed Faulkner claimed that by the 4th year of rebuilding his Ohio soil that the veggies definetly tasted better. The kicker is that he would not allow any inputs from outside...not even earthworms, to prove his experiment.

To me...radishes. I think they are pretty awful no matter where I get them from haha.

I think a lot of store bought stuff like zuke, carrots, radish , corn can be just equally as good as home grown, depending on your store. I will never plant things like carrots and corns. Too much hassle. Plus, store bought corn are bette tha what I grew and were selling 25 cents an ear. Or carrots 50 cents /lb, zuke for 90 cents/lbs. (JMO here)

But things like CUCUMBERS, homegrown ones win hands down. So do beans, peas, herbs, tomatoes, peppers.

I haven't grown them since I was a child, but I have family who swear that you aren't living if you aren't eating fresh potatoes.

Creekside, my Grandma always said if you haven't had food cooked (including bread baked) in a wood stove then you've never had food at all.
How I'd love to taste food cooked that way.

I think organic carrots from the store are as good as homegrown. Broccoli, cauliflower, edamame, arugula, radish, winter squash of the common varieties, some scallions and onions would be the things I think are pretty close in taste between store and homegrown.
Of course if your grocery store buys local that can mean more things would be equal in flavor and freshness. In the season at the store where I work we get daily fresh picked sweet corn grown in the same town.

little_minnie, I disagree. My homegrown broccoli is much sweeter tasting than store bought brocs. I even eat the flowers if it goes to flower before I can cut it. I don't know what variety the ag dept grew last fall ( we bought our plants from the high school) but it is like a cut and come again variety. I never had so much broccoli. The side shoot stems don't get real thick. I eat stems and all. Not something I do with store bought.

Not sure I understand the intent of your question; but if you want to grow veggies that taste 'store bought', then you can buy seed from catalogues that are advertised as good for machine harvesting and shipping, then let the veggies you grow sit in your refrigerator for a week before you eat them, and they should taste very similar to supermarket veggies.

On the other hand, if you would like tastier grub, grow crops that don't ship well, are not adapted to machine harvesting, and enjoy the veggies fresh. I have friends who's son wouldn't eat potatoes until he tasted my home grown spuds - go figure...

I don't prefer store bought. My question was one of curiosity. Of not knowing.
Also, even if some things do taste basically the same, I thought maybe some people grow food since they can grow a lot for less than buying it.
Or because they enjoy gardening.
Darn typos !

This post was edited by Deeby on Fri, Mar 7, 14 at 21:18

Deeby, I enjoy the process (gardening) as well as the flavor of eating right out of the garden. So fresh and tasty!
Some summer days, I literally have my lunch in the garden, munching on green beans, tomatoes, rouge asparagus, late radishes etc!
There is nothing like the taste of FRESH! Veges and herbs! If there's something I don't grow, I go to the local farmers' markets to find what I need.
Some stuff is cheaper to grow, but also has to be processed (canned or frozen) this can be time consuming, but it's worth it to me.
Some is just not worth the hassle.
We are only 2 in the household, so things like corn (which I don't really like frozen) is not on the list.
I'm careful to only grow 1 each of zuchinni and yellow crook necked squash! Neither freeze well unless grated.
I'd have to think some more about my best plantings... Nancy

I long to do that ! Once I actually got a few peas and they were unbelievable they were so good.
But I wondered if "the basics" like potatoes and squash and even bananas would taste similar to store bought.
My dream is to grow corn and have the water boiling while I pick some, then dash back to the kitchen and in a few minutes have a buttery, salty feast !

My take is similar to that of Digdirt. Even if you were to grow the exact same vegetable varieties sold in the supermarket (which I don't recommend as a rule) they would still be better because:

(a) you can give them more TLC than they would get in the field
(b) you can harvest at the stage of maturity you prefer, rather than the stage of veggies picked & sold by weight
(c) you can eat them literally minutes after they were picked
(d) if you garden organically, you know what chemicals are not on them

That being said... I find that vegetables which are typically stored for long periods in the home (such as potatoes and winter squash) to be basically the same as those stored... well... in the store. You just have more varieties to choose from if you grow your own.