June 2018 in Langhe Hills Piemonte

Wildflowers in June in Langhe HIlls

Morning Fog through the Langhe Hills in June

Rain Rain Go Away - Come again another day or month!

Rain Rain Go Away Come Again another Day
 
Yes, it is officially June now, we are one week in and this time last year I was at the beach every weekend.  This year I haven’t unpacked my summer clothes!  What has happened to the weather here?
All year we have been rained on frequently. At least once a week and in the last month multiple times a week, with many thunder storms for good measure.  After having gone through a serious drought last summer, that led to us hastily setting up three new water butts in the garden this winter, we are now having to empty water out of the butts regularly, as they keep overflowing!  The winter stream next to the house, which I love hearing has not stopped running.  It has always stopped in March in years gone by.  Yikes, is this Global Warming in full effect?

There are positives to all this rain, of course.  There are birds in the garden!  Yay!  For the last two years barely a bird has been singing.  Now I get woken to the dawn chorus and they are singing all day.  So much so I was on a Skype business call the other day and my client said, ‘Wow you have some great bird song there!’  There has been heaps of new wild flowers that I haven’t seen before on my walks in previous June's, including a lovely flood of dog rose growing along the road. I am going to take cuttings and grow a dog rose bush alongside an exposed part of the garden, as I can’t find this in the garden shops anywhere here and I love drinking roseship tea in the winter. I am also experimenting with infusing regular Grappa, which all my neighbouring Italian friends do here themselves.  I am starting off with a yarrow infusion and then a cherry one. The hills are verdant green and lush with leaf.  Much lusher than last year and aesthetically everything looks, on the face of it, healthy. 

My vegetable patch is coming along nicely, particularly veg grown straight into the ground such as the potatoes, carrots, celery, lettuce, beetroot, onions and garlic.  But my tomatoes are about a month behind in growth and my aubergines won’t come out to play.  The zucchini flowers aren’t happy either, I really hope this isn’t the second year in a row that I can’t manage to grow zucchini – I must be the only gardener on the planet who can’t pull this off!
 
The cherry tree is about a week away from harvesting and I am off to buy netting today to keep the  birds off most of it. I am looking for new recipes for cherries if you have any.  Thankfully I found a great cherry destoner last weekend at a French market I visited on a weekend away in Sete.  The French are good at some things, I can’t find this implement anywhere here in Piemonte and yet there are cherry trees everywhere in the Langhe.
 
We caught up with a local wine producer, Enzo at Patrone in our local pizzeria last week.  He is very unhappy about the lack of sun.  Last week he said the grapes need a full run of sun and no rain for at least two weeks.  Unfortunately for him and all the other growers this week has had some big rainfall already and more to come by the looks of the weather forecast.  Optimism is low for the quality of this year’s wine harvest, particularly if this carries on.  Last year is looking like a vintage year, though the quantity was low due to hail and the drought the quality is high.  Remember to get buying the 2017 Barolo and Barbaresco as soon as they come out of their respective barrels in the next few years!

We are starting to entertain in the garden the next two weekends, weather permitting!  Lots of great recipes coming up to be shared soon with you all and I might even make some videos of the recipes this time too!

Myself and Andrew are off to be a guest speaker at the Turin Epicurean event, held in Turin (of course) on 20/21/22 June 2018.  Hosted by the lovely Lucia Hannau here are the details.  There are lots of talks and cooking class and other foodie elements to get involved with.  Come along if you are in Turin those days, I would love to meet you.

I am now off to do a little native American Indian Sun dance!  Salute!