Growing food you don't like

The gardeners among us may have noticed that the food you don't like very much seems to perform the best.

Take runner beans. Please take all the runner beans you want. They're over there with the French beans which you can also keep. Our runner beans are in full flower and growing fast enough to give Dwain Chambers a run for his win bonus.



Are these beans getting special treatment? No.
Are these beans taking vitamin supplements and cold and flu remedies? No.
Do these beans have Linford Christie as a trainer? No.

My Borlotti beans are in the same trench and on the same frame and they are a shadow of the French and runner varieties.




It's the same with my Italian black cabbage. Nothing. Stoically refusing to grow.
On Sunday I saw a round head cabbage slap a pigeon that tried to peck at it. The cabbage is in rude health.




So has the bubble burst on my quest to grow more "fancy" vegetables? Will I have to make a trip to Borough Market every time I want to make home-made minestrone soup? Am I doomed to grow spuds and strawberries and runner beans?

HECK NO!

Say yes to wafty Italian cabbages;
embrace the shiny pink Borlotti bean;
pour over the Asparagus; and
play Mariarchi band music to Tomatillos. (What?) Never mind.

This is a marathon, not a sprint.

Perhaps a watched pot really does not boil.

Good things come to those who wait, but you can have runner beans now.