There's also enjoyement and quality. Some of us enjoy gardening, just like others enjoy tinkering on their cars, their computers, their open-source software...

There's also enjoyement and quality. Some of us enjoy gardening, just like others enjoy tinkering on their cars, their computers, their open-source software... It's a manual activity like any other. And then there is the quality aspect. Mass-produced food in the US does not taste good. The varieties you can buy in the store are optimized for 3 things: high yield, long shelf life / tolerance to travel & warehousing and appearance. When you grow your own food, you can optimize for taste. You can have a tomato that is actually sweet, not something that tastes like a cucumber. You can grow varieties that won't do well in transit (ie. fragile or easily bruised) because you're handling the vegetable from the garden to the kitchen. Most of the time, it is impossible to even buy produce with high quality characteristics. When it is, it is often very expensive. This increases the value proposition of a personal/urban garden.