It's hard work (sometimes)

The biggest obstacle for me in growing my own vegetables as opposed to buying is:

Preparation

Some vegetables are easy to go from plant to plate:  runner beans, for instance.  I pick a handful, chop, and cook.  No problem, really.  To preserve them by salting or freezing, I do pretty much just that:  pick, chop, and salt/freeze (they say you should blanch veg before freezing, but I don't bother--I prefer to salt anyway as my freezer's tiny).

Other easy prep veg:  zuccini, tomatoes, leaf lettuce, flat leaf kale, rhubarb, and more of course.  The most they need is a bit of a rinse or a little soak.

Now take peas.  They're grown like runner beans, up supports in the Peas and Beans bed.  But picking them takes two hands plus some sort of bowl or other receptacle, so as a) not to tear down the plant and b) not accidently drop all the pods in the mud (sometimes I drop/tip/step on the bowl anyway).  I need way more than just a handful to make a meal for three, and even then I'm tired of searching the vines for hidden pods before I have enough.  Then it's into the house to shell them, patiently, pod by pod.  Then finally, I can cook them.  It can take me twenty minutes to harvest and prepare a family portion of peas--longer than it takes to actually cook them.

Other tedious to prep veg:  pretty much all root vegetables, purple sprouting broccoli (prep is easy but picking is a chore), cabbage during caterpillar season, and many more.

Why do I grow these labor intensive vegetables then?  A few reasons, really.

1. The flavor is worth the effort.  For a family who eats a lot of carrots, I don't really like the storebought ones!  But I love our own grown ones, and the work of pulling and scrubbing them is a worthwhile tradeoff to me.  If only I could grow enough to store over winter.  If it were up to me we wouldn't buy them in the off season, but I'm outvoted two to one on this.  It's the same with many other roots, and to be honest we rarely buy potatoes during the off season because the taste is so disappointing after our own ones.
2.  These are the only vegetables that will grow!  For instance, peas and purple sprouting broccoli are two veg that grow very well here during the "hungry gap", the period in spring to early summer when the winter crops are done but the main summer garden isn't producing yet.  Not a lot grows during this time, and yet I still want fresh garden veg.  I'm willing to put up with the hassle of harvesting and preparation if nothing else is available.

Once in a while all that scrubbing, peeling, wrestling with vines and stubborn tap roots (who knew spring onions could be so tenacious?), and maneuvering in the mud really gets me down.  It can double cooking time for me, when I already cook our meals from scratch.  It would be so easy if I could just reach in the fridge for a clean, neat little package, ready to heat up and eat. 

I try to remember why I do this:  not only the joy of eating tasty fresh food, but also for pride in my skills and self reliance.  There is a satisfaction in working hard at something for myself and my family, and if not always succeeding, at least perservering.  Yes it can be hard work, but whoever said that was a bad thing?  Convenience is all well and good, but some things are worth doing;  to me, this is worth doing.