What the tomato-grower was pointing toward is what my friend, the environmental activist and author Chip Ward, long ago called “the tyranny of the quantifiable”. You grow tomatoes for the process, not just the product, to garden as well as to eat. To do as well as to have.
We're bad at creativity in our culture because we're obsessed with productivity. Creativity is slow and curious. Productivity considers every experiment and exploration like losing your way.