Grow It or Buy It?

Last weekend I visited the biggest farmer's market in the Big City.  I was in search of large quantities of roma tomatoes for more spaghetti sauce.  I quickly bought forty pounds of them for $24.  As my husband carried them back to the car, my husband asked, "Why grow them if you can buy them?"
It's a legitimate question.
There are some things that are better off bought.  Forty pounds of tomatoes is an example. 
I'll still grow romas.  I can process sauce and chopped tomatoes in small batches with the few pounds I can harvest every couple of days.  I'll grow many more "Jaune Flamme" tomatoes.  They were so tasty roasted in the oven.  I must always have a handful of little cherry tomatoes for salads and snacking.
Large bunches of cucumbers should be bought for pickling and I'll stick to slicers for my own garden.  My dad and I agree that there is no sense in either of us growing our own okra.  Both cucs and okra need more space than we are willing to give them.
I'll skip storage onions in favor of scallions until I can better grow my own onions.  I think I need to do something different with my soil.
These purple beans are a big hit.  And beans are easy to grow and process in small batches.  I don't know about peas.  It seems too hard to grow enough.  Still, I love them so.
Basically, my home garden is for food to eat immediately.  The market is for large scale productions that require lots of one thing (cucumbers, tomatoes, okra, corn, etc.)  Pick your own establishments are a better bet than trying to meet all my fruit needs outside my back door, with the exception of my brother's fabulous raspberries.  They can keep me happy all season long and I'll have enough to make jam as well.
Farmer's markets are nice.  They encourage diversification and a local food economy.  The prices are good and the food is better than anything to be found in the grocery store.  The grocery store can't support these local farmers, but I can.
Anyone with a market nearby can process their own tomatoes or make their own cucumbers.  Apartment dwellers can place a potted herb in a sunny window and enjoy their own harvest of thyme for a homemade salad dressing.
Stepping off the big box food chain is good for us in so many ways.  The spaghetti sauce I have bubbling on the stove top has no high fructose corn syrup in it.  The farmer that grew those tomatoes is able to make a living on her terms, with no pesticides or herbicides being sprayed on the crops or her family as they work together to bring their vegetables to market.  These tomatoes were grown nearby and didn't require a bunch of gas to transport them.  These tomatoes are part of a food chain, an ecology, a family history, and so many more things that I'd rather support.
I grow for fun, but I vote with my dollars for the local, small farmer and it's good for everyone.