I used to hate tomatoes, then I tried home-grown and just realized grocery store tomatoes often suck by comparison. There are many plants that don’t store/ship well so you either can’t get them in stores (e.g. pawpaws) or they taste bad because of short shelf life/bruising.
Comment on It is very therapeutic to garden, though.
GarlicToast@programming.dev 7 months ago
It may be true for ‘soldier’ plants. However there are thousands of plant species that can’t be both efficiently mass produced and shipped while still being of good quality. So you get a bad produce, very costly produce or both.
I can’t afford fresh Basil leaves, I maintained a plant in my kitchen in some of the apartments I lived in. The current one doesn’t have enough sun. It took 10 minutes of work to arrange and emptying left over water.
Also, if you never tasted cherry tomatoes straight from the plant you don’t what you are missing, and how shity is the produce in the market.
Swallowtail@beehaw.org 7 months ago
GarlicToast@programming.dev 7 months ago
TIL about pawpaws, thanks.
Aux@lemmy.world 7 months ago
It sounds like you live in the US or something. Tomatoes from the market should be freshly picked overnight to be sold early in the morning. There’s literally no difference.
GarlicToast@programming.dev 7 months ago
I don’t live in the USA.
I just don’t live near a tomatoes field, however, it’s not just time, perfectly ripe tomatoes don’t survive transportation well. So mass production of tomatoes requires the picking of less ripe fruit.
Aux@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I used to grow tomatoes myself and then transport them 80km away to my family. No issues there. They can survive a lot, especially if you have a refrigerated truck.
GarlicToast@programming.dev 7 months ago
I worked a few summers on a commercial organic farm and for many years in a small family plot. Maybe we are talking about different scales of transportation, quality control or different species of tomatoes.
FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 7 months ago
Okay but how does this feed 8 Billion People?
enbyecho@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Okay but how does this feed 8 Billion People?
I went back and looked at some of your posts on this thread because I was thinking “they can’t really be that unimaginative” and lo and behold, it’s true, you can be!
GarlicToast@programming.dev 7 months ago
We don’t have a stable way to feed 8 billion people. The dependency on monoculture will cause many people to die under a changing climate.
Self gardening may:
- Increase food stability
- Increase access to nutrients rich food, GR while saving many, reduced food quality
- Be fucking tasty and cheap
Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de 7 months ago
The basil plants you buy in grocery stores are designed to die after a while. It’s not lack of sun or water, it’s because there are just way too many plants in the tiny pot and basil does not like to be root-bound. They basically strangle themselves to death.
You can easily propagate the plant through cuttings or you can separate the grown plants and re-pot them in smaller groups.
GarlicToast@programming.dev 7 months ago
Yea, I had Basil im some apartments. The current one has no sun at-all. Basil needs some. But when I bought plants my father guided me how to split them. Gifted my friends, don’t need more then one.