["Agribusiness, EarlyView. ", "\nABSTRACT\nGrowing fruits and vegetables as community and home gardeners is becoming increasingly popular among US households. Gardening offers consumers a unique opportunity to engage directly in both food production and consumption. This hands‐on experience can enhance gardeners' knowledge of agricultural production and ultimately influence their food purchase behavior. However, few studies have examined whether gardening experience influences consumer food preferences and willingness to pay (WTP). This study examines whether individuals with food gardening experience exhibit different preferences and WTP for organic, local, and appearance attributes compared to non‐gardeners, using an online choice experiment with US consumers. The results indicate that consumers generally prefer organic, locally produced tomatoes with stems and stickers. When we segment consumers by gardening experience, gardeners exhibit significantly higher WTP for locally produced tomatoes than non‐gardeners. However, WTP for organic and stems and stickers attributes does not differ significantly between the two groups. The results from Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) further indicate that the findings remain consistent after controlling for consumers' perceptions and attitudes toward gardening. The findings suggest that market practitioners who market and sell locally produced vegetables could benefit economically by supporting initiatives that increase awareness and practice of home or community gardening.\n"]