Food home delivery for anything other than a takeaway is a mission for me. Not just because I live on my own in an old Chinese walk up so there’s no doorman to sign if I’m not here, but also because I have a pint sized fridge with a tiny shelf freezer that’s only got space for the essentials - ice and a bottle of vodka. And when you get home delivery of organic fish and meats or vegetables they generally require large orders, therefore big fridges and an extended family to devour it all.

But I’ve long wanted to try the organic farm vegetable deliveries, and with my new eat-more-veggies-and-fruit summer regime, now was the perfect time.

Two companies whose newsletters have recently dropped into my inbox, both with seemingly flawless organic, sustainable and locally farmed credentials (I haven’t actually visited them in person) are the ones I’m trying. Homegrown Foods, the same company as the beautifully designed but severely portion size-challenged Posto Publico, and Providence Family Farm.

First things first - the websites. Homegrown has a great website. Rustic and beautifully laid out, it’s a real pleasure browsing. Providence’s isn’t bad. Not as beautiful but it works great.

Going for the one-off trial deliveries, at Homegrown this means spending at least HK$420, while at Providence it’s HK$350. So far Providence wins out. After all, I just wanted to get a taster, not buy half a field’s worth, and my grocery shopping for the week doesn’t usually hit those kinds of highs. Spending that amount on just vegetables was stretching my budget. The amount of veggies I could get for those kinds of prices at my usual haunt, Gage Street market, I wouldn’t be able to physically drag home.

At Homegrown you choose what you want and as I was doing this for the first time I decided to go with the more unusual items – like burdock (what on earth do you do with that?), taro, Swiss chard, pumpkin (I’m a Brit so I never know what to do with them except inexpertly carve them at Halloween) and some strange mushrooms. I also ordered the tomatoes, as everyone knows finding tasty tomatoes in Hong Kong is like stumbling across the Holy Grail. I stopped once I had just exceeded the minimum spend. Paid. Received a confirmation. All good.

At Providence they do all the onerous deciding for you, selecting whatever is in season. A surprise delivery. Cool.

First to arrive was the Homegrown. Having nicknamed the pasta dishes at Posto ‘pastini’ it was with some trepidation that I waited for the delivery.

Before I go any further, I realise we’re talking organic veggies, so I’m expecting them to be expensive compared with buying market veggies. And they’re being delivered to my home, so there’s the convenience factor to add in. But when they arrived I was still shocked. The beetroot (HK$48) was one medium to small sized beetroot with leaves. The Swiss chard (HK$78) was five big leaves. The Chinese pumpkin (HK$98) was medium-small. The mixed cherry tomatoes (HK$78) and the willow mushrooms (HK$78) were the most delicious looking, and turned out to be the best buys in terms of value. The burdock (HK$48) and taro (HK$68) were missing.

I had been dreaming about the numerous days I could feed myself with these veggies. I’d planned pumpkin soup, beetroot and tomato salad, the healthy chard steamed and seasoned with salt and pepper, the mushrooms sautéed in their own juices with butter. The burdock and taro I was not sure about. Checking the Homegrown Foods website for one of their handy recipes, unfortunately there were none for these more unusual (to me) veggies. But then seeing as they hadn’t arrived, that was no big deal. (NB The company got back to me about them and delivered the burdock and some added extras of my choice as the taro was off the menu, to make up for this at a later date.)

When Providence arrived, by contrast it was a little overwhelming. Perhaps that was just because I was going from one extreme to the other. There were so many different kinds of leaves and so many of them I could barely squash them into the fridge. There was kohlrabi, which I was seeing for the first time, loads of different lettuces, a cabbage, an array of Chinese greens, spinach, spring onions... I was going to have my work cut out just figuring out how to eat it all before it turned to a pulp at the back of the fridge.

Homegrown's produce disappeared in literally one meal. I'd invited a friend over and we shared pumpkin soup and a tomato, basil and mozzarella salad to start with, followed by steamed salmon with chard, beetroot and sautéed mushrooms. Obviously the mozzarella, basil and salmon I'd bought elsewhere to plus up the meal.

Providence's was more of a marathon than a sprint. There are only so many green salads you can eat in consecutive meals, so I also made lettuce soup, I steamed the spinach (I know, same same, but it's one of my favourite dishes) and ate the kohlrabi and cabbage raw and sautéed; all this over several days.

And, the acid test of taste?

The multi-coloured cherry tomatoes and the willow mushrooms sent by Homegrown were ambrosial. Packed full of taste, the tomatoes were almost squeaky they were so crunchy, and the mushrooms, while a little stringy (possibly the fault of the chef) had an incredible flavour. The beetroot tasted sweet and earthy, and the pumpkin soup was ok, but not outstanding, (again, the chef not her ingredients at fault here).

From Providence, the Kohlrabi couldn't be faulted. The texture and taste were fresh and crunchy, and equally good raw and cooked. The lettuces were good but there were really too many for me to wade my way through, and the Chinese greens, spinach and cabbage all tasted intensely fresh and - well - green.

At the end of the day, while the taste of everything was better, significantly so in some cases, the feast provided by Providence required a family to be on the receiving end for everything to be eaten up before it went off, while the relative famine from Homegrown left a slightly bitter aftertaste financially.

Neither hit the spot because neither were a sustainable choice for me. Homegrown was simply too expensive. Providence was better value but there were too many leaves and not enough variation. I freely admit as a single household with a miniscule fridge and a freezer full of vodka I'm not their target audience, but all the same, it seems I just can't afford to be that healthy. Gage Street market, here I come.

www.homegrown.com.hk

www.providence.hk