I've been working too much and not updating and not keeping on on anything!  So, here is a photo of one of our final summer harvests.  We got SO MUCH this summer.  Can't wait for next year, I know we can do even better with all that we learned.  We are getting ready to plant garlic for next year so I hope it does better than the garlic I tried to trick this year.  Just finished filming "The Aquabats Supershow!" Season 3, and filmed a music video for singer/songwriter Robin Landry (also my amazing step-mom).  We worked hard all weekend and the footage looks amazing, can't wait to start editing.  Hopefully I'll be able to keep up more in the near future!

Even when you think things are going well, they die.  Still not sure why, but all of our beans and pea plants died and the zucchini plants are not looking very good either.  Could be aphids or not enough water or some type of plant disease...  its very confusing for someone like me.  Nonetheless, we have still been getting and eating quite a bit from our garden.  No matter what happens now, I think we did better than I ever imagined for our first shot at growing a veggie garden.   Tonight I used my sweet new basket that Jen had made for me and made a salad with lettuce, cherry tomatoes, cucumber and carrots all from the garden; along with a pasta with squash, green onion, and broccoli.

I can't really believe it, but we have been eating a ton of veggies from the garden!  We can't eat the lettuces fast enough, been giving it away to everyone who comes over and made a giant salad for our Breaking Pointe party last night.  We have gotten about 8 cucumbers so far and I tried pickling for the first time yesterday, they actually taste really good!  Still getting radishes but we've eaten all but about 5.  Going to have to get more seeds next year.  Zucchinis have been taking over and we've probably eaten about 6 of those and I have 2 giant ones that I'm going to bake into a chocolate zucchini cake today.  Harvested a bunch of basil yesterday and made pesto.  I've kinda been a cooking machine lately.  Tomatoes have been growing, but we don't have any red ones yet.  We have a little cauliflower but it doesn't look too great, so we'll have to see how that one does.  I picked a carrot and it was awesome, but not very big, so we're going to wait a little longer on those.  Might have to pickle some carrots too....  The aphids have been our biggest problem lately but we found a spray that is safe to use on vegetables and that has been helping a ton. 

Just a quick update on the Farm.  It's getting huge!  We've made about 6 salads with all the TONS of lettuces we have been getting.  Also harvested some radishes.  We have little Cucumbers and Zucchini starting and everything else is doing pretty dang good if I do say so myself :) 

I'm turning our Blog into my garden adventures blog.  Hope no one minds.  OK, here is the update on the Daniels family farm.  Much better news I can tell you, in case you were too scarred from our last post (I know I was).  After my obsession over figuring out what was eating the plants we came to the conclusion that the most likely culprits were one of the following:  Rabbits (weird, cause we live in the city), Quails or other bird (haven't seen any quail), or Snipes.  Kent's dad is pretty sure its the Snipes.  After a visit to Seattle, Grandma Withrow hooked me up with this sweet bobble head owl, named Oly, who is supposed to help with the birds like a scarecrow.  Plus he's pretty cool.  I carried him on the plane.

I took Grandma Landry's advice and got a bunch of Marigolds today.  They are supposed to attract bugs so that they leave your other plants alone.  Just covering all my basis.  We also installed Fort-Knox style netting over everything so if something wants to get through this obstacle course Owl-Net-Flower-athon then go ahead, make my day. 

So-I found out that you have to plant garlic in the fall, but, I didn't, and I love garlic so.... I manipulated some garlic into THINKING I planted it in the fall but REALLY planted it in the spring ha ha ha!!!  (insert evil laugh).  I took 4 cloves of garlic from Amber, from Smiths grocery store, and put them in the freezer for 2 days.  See- now the garlic thinks its winter.  I then moved the garlic to the refrigerator for another 3-4 days.  Garlic is thinking 'woah, that wasn't such a bad winter and it must be spring now, sweet'.  Then I planted it in the beg of April when it still wasn't too warm out.  I planted it pretty deep, like 4-6 inches.  Today when I was weeding I saw 1 sprout!  OK, its very possible it was a weed, but it didn't look like the other weeds so I'm going to wait and see.  Worst case, I'll do the right thing and plant garlic in the fall like a normal person. 

We actually had a harvest already because I needed to thin out my lettuces and spinach so I took the little guys and made a salad for Kent, Jen and myself the other night.  I bought all the other veggies but still!  It was delicious.  I'm surprised the lettuce is doing well since its a cool weather plant and  its so hot and I planted in these boxes because I thought they would get more shade but nope!  Did my math wrong and they get it non-stop.  Mmmm baby lettuces taste delicious.  Overall about half the plants I ended up buying after mine got eaten but the other half are still surviving from the seeds I planted so I guess overall that's not a terrible average....

I'll start with the good.  Kent built this trellis by taking a fence and knocking out every other board.  Super awesome!  I used fishing line and nails to make starter lines to help get the beans and peas to the fence posts.  My zucchini started sprouting as were the other seeds I planted directly outdoors.  The onions and carrots took the longest but they are up and going now!  I transplanted my first set of seedlings outside.  7 tomatoes, 4 cucumbers, 3 cabbage, some green onions and 3 bell peppers.  Most of them did fine.  I lost all but 1 cabbage but she's hanging in there!  Then...disaster struck.

The post before this one goes into detail on garden doomsday but basically, something ate all of my tomato seedlings and all but one cucumber as well as a bunch of lettuce, radishes, peas, beans.... everything.  There were a ton of ants around the affected plants and I believe the bugs on the leaves from the night photos are aphids which attract ants.  No one seems to think that the ants and aphids could have done all that damage though.  I bought some ladybugs to release tonight that should help with the aphids I hope and possibly with the ants.  I also sprinkled cayanne pepper around the plants.  DO NOT use vinegar solution on your plants.  I killed a TON of them because I did that.  Also- DO NOT use antibacterial dish soap in any homemade concoctions either.  I rinsed everything off and hope that some will survive but I'm basically starting over.  Stupid internet telling me what to do, I should know better!  I'm done with homemade sprays.  I went and bought some starter plants that are larger so hopefully they will do better.  I planted one cucumber last night and covered it with a net.  It's still standing...  the local nurseries think quail but I haven't seen any around here.  Maybe a cat?  I planted some pea plants today so we'll see how that goes but I think I'm going to wait another night before I plant everything else just in case.  I submitted photos to USU's gardening extension program, they are supposed to be awesome at figuring out stuff like this so we'll see what they say.  I ruled out Slugs and Snails when I put out beer traps and didn't have any show up.  Who would have thought gardening would be so difficult?! 

So...I transplanted my seedlings that I brought up from BIRTH and guess what?  They were healthy, made the transfer and then....doomsday!  2 night ago, one of my tomato seedlings went missing, completely gone, no trace.  Last night- of the 7 I transplanted only 1.5 remain.  Of my 4 cucumbers- 2 remain.  The entire plant is just gone.  A bunch of my bean plants had holes in them and I thought bugs.  But a whole plant?  Also last night, and entire 2-leaf zucchini plant was gone plus 1 leaf on each of 2 other zucchini plants.  It's really bad.  First I tried a Vinegar and water solution but that didn't seem to help.  Today, I went online and thought that if something ate an entire plant it must be either a hornworm or a slug/snail.  I made a home-made solution of water, vegetable oil. cayenne, and dishwashing soap and sprayed that on everything.  Tonight....Amber and I went on a hunt.  We snuck ever so carefully out in the middle of the night to see if we could catch what was eating my plants.  BUGS!  We found these tiny black bugs on everything!  I've been trying to figure out what they are, or better yet how to kill them and prevent them organically but I can't figure it out!  Aphids aren't usually black and don't eat entire plants... PLEASE HELP ME!  I decided to buy some starter plants tomorrow because I only have a few more seedlings started and I'm afraid they aren't far along enough to transplant and I don't want to wait too long!  They didn't move when Amber grabbed them, she could squish them easily but I'm sure that for every one squashed there are 30 more waiting to come aboard.  I sprayed everything again with the water/vinegar solution tonight, hopefully that will save us for the night but I can't keep doing these hunts every night!  They were on the romaine, raddishes, peppers, spinach, broccoli, pretty much everything.  Please help me

Planting.  I read that certain seeds can be planted 2 weeks before the 'last frost date' which I looked up to be May 1st in SLC.  So, I started with some of these seeds and made this handy-dandy chopstick measuring device to space out the seeds and plant at the right depths.  I started with Carrots, Spinach, Onions, Lettuces, Peas, Garlic (as an experiment!), Broccoli, and Radishes.  I planted half of the row space now and then will plant more in a few weeks.  We also laid down the soaker hoses and made a super complicated splitter/system/mess with our hoses since we only have one spigot. 

Here is a close up of my hand made chop-stick measuring device.  I think I should sell them on etsy or wherever else people but weird homemade devices.  Also helpful for remembering where you put the last seed cause I forget things in like 3 seconds, much like a dog, but counting I am pretty good at.

Kent took our good friend Natania, on her 50th birthday, to the Murray dump to get FREE MULCH!  We were told you needed to be a Murray resident so Natania was our cover, but they never even asked.  So basically, Natania just got a super fun and free birthday field trip!  Kent laid the mulch on top of the weed blocker and hid the hoses under it so it looks all pretty now.  So far nothing is sprouting...I probably killed everything already.  My seedlings are doing good and we started "Hardening" them which I think is just when you are getting into the seedlings mind to start toughing them up for the real world.  Much like parenting.  Except you can just leave them outside for hours at a time and not worry about them.  Much like how I would be as a parent.  Hoping to transplant this week and plant more seeds.  I planted herbs on the back deck in pots too, I'm so ambitious!  Anyone want to take bets on how many actual vegetables we grow after all this work???

Our front lawn has never looked very good.  And Kent really hates mowing it.  So- we decided to rip the whole thing out and do a zero-scape with raised garden beds.  I plan to grow vegetables, but we'll see what happens.  Here is how the process is going!

I plan to start planting some seeds outside tomorrow, got it all mapped out and everything.  I'm going to start a secondary Blog about Gardening for Dummies for Dummies.  People like me that are even more than dumb when it comes to gardening.  After adding the soil, we put compost on the top approx 3 inches of each box.  In a couple weeks I'll transplant the seedlings from inside outside as well.  We're adding mulch to cover the weed blocker so that is the next project.  More to come!

Finally, we're updating our BLOG.  We apologize for the delay, it was a LOT of photos to go through.  For anyone that wants to skip the jabbering on, you can click on Honeymoon Photos here or at the top of our BLOG at any time to just look at pretty photos.  Kent and I were able to go on our Honeymoon this spring to Italy and Greece.  It's been a lifelong dream of mine and it only made it more special that we got to celebrate our new marriage there!  We left on April 25th and were gone for 5 weeks.  Yeah, thats a long time, we're lucky that we work in a buisness that allows us to leave for so long and it was great because we got to really get to know each place.  We stayed usually 3-4 days in a city.  Approx 3 1/2 weeks in Italy and 1 1/2 weeks in Greece.  During the trip I wrote a few emails home with updates, so I'm going to share those here. 

April 25th, 2012 Venice
We managed to find the right bus and water bus to get us to our hotel and after wandering around the crazy maze of alleyways (there are no streets or cars!) we stumbled upon our little hotel in no time! We took a water bus through the grand canal and out to the island of murano and watched the glass blowing and shopped around.  Everything is expensive but I did find a little glass giraffe from an old lady that I'm very excited about! I have to ship it back because I'm scared of breaking it.  We also completed out goal of having caffe, gelato, pasta, and wine in our first day.  The house wine is amazing.  We also had lemoncello for dessert.  Kent had never tried it! Venice is incredible.  I'm so glad we came here.  Tomorrow we are doing St. Marks square and a gondella ride! Then we head to Florence tomorrow afternoon.  
Feeling a little better, I think my fever has gone down so I'm hoping to be back to normal soon.  I think pasta is good for healing!
We're so glad we decided to go to Venice! It was unlike anything I've ever seen.  We had a handsome gondolier serenade us, so cool.

April 30th, 2012 Florence, Italy
We have spent the last 3 days in Florence and are just leaving on a bus to Radda en chianti.  We've been in a hostel for the last 3 nights with loud kids so I'm excited to stay at a cool hotel in wine country.  Florence was quite different from Venice because it is so bustling but we ended up really liking it here, Sat night we got beero and vino and took them to the ponte vecchico and sat and listened to some awesome street musicians all night,  last night we took some vino out to the river and just people watched and wandered the streets.  Definatley romantico here!  You turn a corner and there is another crazy cool church or castle! You were right mom, The David statue was totally worth seeing.  17 feet tall!  So beautiful.  Yesterday we went to the other big museum the uffizi which was overload of art.  The original birth of Venus painting is there. Another highlight was climbing the dome in the Florence duomo.  You could see the whole valley from up there and the mural inside the dome is creepy! Boy those catholics sure now how to gloom up the churches!  Ha ha.  We have yet to meet a restaurant we havent loved.  Lemoncello for dessert mmmm....  Did you try a spritz when you were here? I finally asked because I kept seeing people with these orange drinks.  It's prosecco and soda water and something else that makes it orange.  Very refreshing!  I found my Italian shoes, boots actually.  They are so amazing I couldn't pass them up!  I'll send a picture later.  We have 2 hours until our bus so I am just reading. 

April 30th, 2012 Chianti, Italy
Our hotel in chianti is incredible.  So nice after 3 days in a hostel.  The terrace overlooks all the grapes I'm going to be drinking,  tomorrow is a national holiday so I think we are going to relax and explore the little town we are in.  Wed and thurs wine tasting, I think we are going to rent a scooter! Then fri we will see Siena on our way out of Tuscany.  I was getting car sick on the bus ride here the roads are so windy.  Almost time For dinner!

May 9th, 2012 Rome, Italy
Oh man I'm tired.  We just did so many things in 2 days its crazy!  We were hoping to break our tours into 2 days but ended up only able to get reservations for all in one day.  So today, we spent 3 hours this morning in the Vatican museums and the Sistine chapel.  Yesterday we saw St. Peters Basilica and St Peters square in Vatican city.  After a quick lunch we took the subway back over by the colosseum and did 4 hours of walking tours of the coliseum and ancient Rome.  Crazy cool old stuff.  Saw the pantheon and Trevi fountain today too which are in my top picks for coolest old stuff, even thought the fountain is fairly new 1700s.  Yesterday we also did stuff like piazza de popolo, Spanish steps, and lots of other cool old stuff on our own.  My feet are sore but I think I can make it to our next stop- dinner!  Last night I think I had my best Italian meal so far.  We went to the original Alfredo restaurant in Rome and I of course had the original fettuccini alfredo.  It was incredible and I ate it all!  Good thing we walked for like 8 hours straight today.  Tomorrow we leave Rome and head to Pompeii via Naples.  So we will be exploring Pompeii on Friday And then hopefully resting on the Amalfi coast for the weekend before heading to Capri.  The coliseum  is so amazing.  That was Kent's favorite and probably mine too although the Sistine Chapel is right up there. Poor Michelangelo stuck up there for 4 years just on the ceiling!.  I'm glad we went inside on a tour and got to learn stuff and things about old stuff.  Lol.

May 12th, 2012 Amalfi Coast, Italy
Kent and I are lazing about on our porch in Amalfi!  The Amalfi coast is pretty big and it runs from Sorrento to Salerno but we are right next to the middle town, also called Amalfi.  It's so beautiful!  The weather has gotten really warm, it feels like the high 80s today so luckily we are right on the beach!  This morning we had our typical italian breakfast of crissant with marmalade and caffe latte which are included in most hostels and hotels.  Ive grown to really like Italian breakfast :)
After we left Rome we took the train to Naples which is the center for transit to these areas.  We didn't really care to see Naples because we had heard bad things but I did managed to work in a pit stop when we got off the train we walked about 15 minutes to a famous Naples pizza place.  Can't go through Naples without pizza!  They only make 2 kinds, margarita and one like that with out cheese.  The line was out the door for lunch so Kent got in and got 2 pizzas to go.  We sat on the sidewalk and had the best pizza ever!  The crust was delicious and it was just fresh crushed tomatoes and some mozzarella.  So good.  That was it for Naples so we headed back to the train station.  We took the train to Pompeii and stayed at a place called 'Camping Spartacus' where I had a bungalow booked.  The first one didn't have AC and it was pretty hot in Pompeii and there are Mosquitos so you don't want to leave all the windows open.  He was nice enough to move us to one with AC.  The downside, the bungalow was basically on the train tracks.  Oh, and the ac only worked if no lights were on or you would blow the fuse.  So we had fun coordinating between lights, AC, and the train running on top of our heads.  And then kent went on a mosquito killing spree. It was pretty hilarious.  Just when we were climbing into bed, we unfolded the one sheet they gave us and it had a hole the size of Kent running down the middle.  So that was fun too.  So basically, if you are looking for a charming place to stay in Pompeii, Camping Spartacus is the place for you!  The next morning we went into the old city of Pompeii that has been excavated after the volcano blew up.  It was incredible what got preserved!  There are paintings and whole houses with stoves and everything from like 80 BC.  Then there were people which were scary.  We spent over 4 hours wandering the city.  It was crazy.   After the city we caught a little mini train to Sorrento and transferred to a bus that was about as wide as the curvy roads we drove on.  I don't know how they fit around some of those turns.  Not to mention, on one side is a cliff wall dropping down hundreds of feet.  We had a good driver and made it safety to Amalfi.  Our hostel here is nice, we have our own little room and a balcony and are right on the beach.  The shower is over the toilet which reminds me of the old boat.  I'll take the toilet shower over the train on our heads any day though.  We laid on the beach today and went swimming in the crystal blue water, it's pretty cold though.  For lunch pizza and prosecco and then of course some afternoon gelato.  Not too shabby.  It's nice to relax after Rome and Pompeii.  After amalfi we are off to the island Capri for 2 nights in a real hotel which I'm quite excited for. 

May 21st, 2012 Greece
Kent and I are sitting on a giant ferry on our way from Athens to the Greek island Paros.  I have no idea how long this ferry is but I have a feeling it's like 3-4 hours....  Kent is sleeping on the table like a hobo, ha ha.  I should draw on him.  Ok anyways, we had an amazing last few days in Italy on the island Capri.  It was a nice ending and we got to see all over the island and lay on the beach for a bit.  It's a rocky beach though so not as comfy as I had hoped. The only sad part was the blue grotto was closed all 3 days we were there because the water was crazy high and rough.   So that was a bummer but we also realized that for the entire 4 weeks we've been here we have been so lucky with the weather,  knock on wood.  It hasn't rained on us once.  We hiked for 3 days in Cinque Terre and it was supposed to rain but it only did for like 30 min while we were in a restaurant.  Yesterday when we had our big walking tour in Athens it was supposed to rain too, but sunny all day!  After Capri we had a long Journey that included a ferry to Naples and one night there (we went back to the amazing pizza place and I found out it was the place Julie Roberts went for pizza in Eat Prey Love) so good!  The next morning we had a 5 hour train ride across Italy and then got on an ferry for 18 hours.  The ferry was awesome!  We had a cabin with beds and a Bathroom and everything.  There was also a 24 hour bar which we took advantage of!  Got a good night sleep and when we woke up we were almost to Greece.  We got in around 2pm the next day and hopped on a bus for 3 hours to Athens.  Once in Athens it was harder than I thought to get to the hostel but kent and I managed to figure out the city bus and the subway and made it that night to our hostel in Athens.  It's harder in Greece because I don't understand the alphabet so I can't even guess what words mean like with Italian.  I'm not as excited about the food here but I did find chicken souvlaki that I like.  Yesterday was our one day in Athens so we signed up for a free walking tour through our hostel that ended up being awesome!  We walked around for over 4 hours and saw everything! The Akropolis is incredible and it's so cool how it sits on a hill overlooking the city so you can see if from everywhere.  We saw the Parthenon there
I also really liked seeing the changing of the guards.  It's a little funny because there is literally no government in Greece right now but they still go about their business.  We learned a little bit more about the economic situation here and it's pretty sad.  Last night we took a bottle of wine (I think there is a theme to our honeymoon) up to this rock by the Akropolis and watched the sun set and then hung out on the roof patio of our hostel.  I'm excited that last night was our last night in a hostel.  No more bunk beds!  Once we get to Paros we have a sweet hotel and then Santorini!  It's crazy we are getting towards the end but it does feel like we have been gone forever.  

May 22nd, 2012 Paros, Greece
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have a resort hotel to yourself?  Well Kent and I have learned!  We got to our hotel on Paros island and learned that we were the first guests of the season.  They decided to open later because of the elections and such.  It's sort of like living in a mansion resort with butlers at your every beck and call.  We have the pool to ourselves, complete with drinks and food brought to our cabana as well as the restaurant.   It's a little weird too, I feel a little like on beauty and the beast when she showed up and the clock and candle holder were like 'Let us get you something Please!!'.  Ha ha.  They are really nice, the hotel manager showed us around and to our room.  It's like a village with little cottages all around.  It's quite amazing.  A little different than sharing a bunk room with 6 strangers snoring.  Right now we are on the patio drinking some wine and getting a cheese plate delivered.  We went to the store and bought wine and snacks because we quickly realized we would go broke ordering drinks here all day.  On the 2nd day here we decided to rent a car, because it's crazy cheap for some reason, and that way we could explore the island.  Yesterday we went to town and went shopping and did laundry.  Today we explored the beaches and found a really good one called golden beach with super nice sand and we went swimming in the Aegean sea.  The water is actually nice if you just run in really fast.  Then we went to a beach bar and had a cocktail and laid out some more.  It's a rough life here.  Tomorrows plan is the same, ha ha.  We might look into renting surf boards though because we saw some people with them and there were Kelsey sized waves.  Thursday we have to leave our private resort and take the ferry to santorini.  Poor us.  I think it was a good plan to save our money and spend it on nice places on the island because it has been soooo nice to relax and lay around.  Feels like what most honeymoons must be like. There are stray cats everywhere but they are all very nice and seem well groomed and fed, not like the scary ones.  Last night for dinner we got take out in town and took it to the beach by our hotel.  We had dinner on the beach and made friends with a kitty I named Herold,  he was very nice and I gave him my left over shrimps.  Then he curled up on me and purred.  So far I do not have rabies so that is a good sign.  
We still haven't learned a single Greek word.  It's too hard. 

May 27th, 2012 Santorini, Greece
Greetings from Santorini!  Today is our last full day here which is sad but I am laying by the pool looking out off of the cliff that our hotel is built on.  The day we got here it was raining on the ferry ride, it is about 3 1/2 hours on the ferry from Paros to Santorini.  Then the wind came.  It was so crazy!  I thought we might blow off the cliff.  Lucky for us, we spent most of the day on the ferry or on a bus.  We walked around a lot trying to find our hotel.  Our hotel is really nice and the view is unbelievable.  The whole island is basically a volcano, built by an underwater volcano that once blew up and turned what used to be land (the lost city of Atlantis?) to a bay. There are volcanic islands in the bay too.  Our first day we rented a scooter and set out to see the black sand beaches.  They really are all black!  It's because of the volcanic rock.  The sand is however, very hot on your feet!  We went swimming and sat in the sun chairs of a beach restaurant while I drank a mango pinapple smoothie.  We hopped back on our scooter, named roxy, and went to the red sand beach.  It was cool looking, but not nice for laying out so we just we just checked it out and moved on to our next project- wine tasting!  It's mostly white wine on the island but we tried some good Greek red wines as well.  They have this amazing dessert wine called vinsanto too.  We only made it to one winery before it was closing.  We went to the town of Oia (ee-ah) for sunset because it's apparently the most famous sunset in the world.  It was pretty awesome.  Yesterday was probably my favorite day here because we went on a sailing trip!  They picked us up from the hotel and drove us to a marina where we boarded the Medusa!  It's a cool old sailboat. Our 2 (very cute) crew members took us out for a 5 hour cruise.  We visited the volcanic islands and swam to hot springs on the island.  They cooked us a nice lunch and fed us wine all day.  We went for a short snorkeling adventure but didn't see much.  We got off the boat at Oia and spent the evening in town having drinks and an amazing dinner on a rooftop restaurant and got to watch the sunset again.  Then the shuttle picked us up at 9:30 and took us back to the hotel.  It was so much fun!  Today is relax at the hotel day since we need to enjoy this awesome view and pool lounge.  Tomorrow is our last day and the ferry leaves at 5:00 so we are thinking we will rent a scooter once more and go wine tasting before the ferry back to Athens.  We get in late and then we fly out the next day!  I can't believe it's almost over.  It seems like so long ago that we were in Venice though. I'm so excited to pick up the pups, I miss them tons.