Cindy Hamilton wrote in rec.food.cooking:

> On Sunday, July 2, 2017 at 3:40:09 PM UTC-4, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
> > On 7/2/2017 3:28 PM, Julie Bove wrote:
> > >
> > > "Gary" > wrote in message
> > > news > > >> On 7/2/2017 6:04 AM, Julie Bove wrote:
> > > > >
> > >>> But... Fresh tomatoes are something I almost always keep in the
> > house. >>> And if they look like they're starting to go bad, I
> > will put them in a >>> soup.
> > > >
> > >> Nice garden fresh tomatoes can be chopped up and frozen for many
> > >> months. Use to make a nice spaghetti sauce during the winter
> > when >> stores only sell lousy tomatoes. They freeze well and
> > retain that >> garden taste.
> > >
> > > No freezer space and I rarely make spaghetti sauce. Must also be
> > > different where you live because our winter and summer tomatoes
> > > are no different.
> >
> > They certainly are here. In summer we get fresh local tomatoes
> > picked ripe from the field with great flavor. In winter we get
> > either hothouse or imported ones picked too soon with no flavor but
> > ship well.
>
> Do you get the fresh local tomatoes at a major grocery store? In my
> experience, grocery stores require a consistent supplier, so it's
> pink rocks year round.
>
> We've got a few smaller places that can source decent tomatoes
> from about May through October. Excellent tomatoes are available at
> farmers' markets, but only from about late July through early October
> here. Once nighttime temperatures are frequently below 50 F,
> tomatoes are pretty much done.
>
> Cindy Hamilton

Hi Cindy,

While it varies by store here, at least Harris Teeters (my main one) in
season has a whole set of 'locally grown'. We have a big farming
community for all that we are also a set of big cities. Lots of
Virginia Beach, especially south part, then Chesapeake and Suffolk have
a lot too. Supply isn't that much of a problem because chances are,
*some* of the produce on shelves for just about all the USA folks here,
was probably grown here. Hot houses too for winter.

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