Beautiful, you have done an amazing job putting this all together. Love your clematis on the ladder. What name is it? I have some clematis seeds for some of mine that I have been saving and would be glad to share with you and anyone else that wants them. I also have just collected a lot of seed from one of my iris, it blooms yellow and is quite tall either jap or siberian or louisiana iris. You can see pics of the clematis and iris in my flickr album. Good luck with the sweet autumn clematis, I hate it. It has taken over my yard and is very invasive. I pull it or cut it where ever I see it. If it has not bloomed yet, cut it back so it doesn't spill over into your back yard and try to deadhead it before the seeds spread. It only has a short bloom period in the fall and the blooms are hardly worth the effort when they leave you presents to contend with in all your other beds the following spring. Good luck...here's a link to my flickr page, look at Clematis and iris or other 2010 flowers. Here is a link that might be useful: My flickr album

We seem to be fortunate here in California with extended growning seasons! I am also a first year gardener (with the Square Foot Garden style). Not knowing what I could plant or when, I did a lot of research on the web and different gardening forums. I found a few sites with planting quides you might also find useful. Hope these guides will help, along with the one linked to in the above post. They were of help to me. Just copy and paste the addresses into your browser. http://camastergardeners.ucdavis.edu/files/63789.pdf http://groups.ucanr.org/tkmg/files/67626.pdf http://www.almanac.com/garden/plantingtable/index.php (then enter your zipcode) http://www.thevegetablegarden.info/resources/planting-schedules/zones-9-10-planting-schedule (This page has links to multiple planting zones)

yay herbs! OK, here's what has worked for me. Perhaps it can work for you all as well. I'll try not to ramble too much, but herbs are a passion of mine..... First of all, the best time to plant herbs is in the Fall or Spring. If you are growing from seed, start them in the Fall so they can be planted out in the Spring. I've got all my herbs in the ground. I believe this makes them more hardy and durable throughout our weather extremes. But many people have success with containers. Do whatever suits you best. Nearly all herbs appreciate well drained soil, either in a pot or in the ground. Make sure they have it. Many herbs thrive in ordinary sandy dirt. When planting, I enrich the site just a bit with a generic store-bought "garden soil." Most herbs (in Florida) prefer morning sun and afternoon shade. Some more than others. Shelter of some kind (tree, arbor, fence, etc.) can help protect herbs from heavy rain or wind. Herbs range from high drought tolerance to absolutely none. If you can, group the plants by water-need for an easier time with watering. Following are the herbs that have done the best for me. Most have culinary/aromatic as well as medicinal uses: -Rosemary -Apple Mint -Rue -Lion's Ear -Mexican Tarragon -Thyme -Lemon Verbena -Garden Sage -Southernwood -Goodwin Creek Lavender (a specialized variety that does well in FL heat and humidity. most other types die off.) There are some others out there, like lemon balm, feverfew, bronze fennel, and patchouli that are doing OK, but not as well as the ones above. It's a constant experiment. Good luck!

The very first garden is always a bit of a trial and error so learn from your mistakes and enjoy your successes. And there will be some :-)) I'd just leave the berries alone for their first season and worry about pruning next spring. As a very general rule of thumb, you never want to fertilize something when first planted. Stressed plants are unable to assimilate the fertilizer properly and a new planting or transplanting is always going to have some stress associated with it. Mud is not necessarily a bad thing but poor or slow drainage is. Figuring out your soil conditions and any need to amend should be something considered long before any planting is contemplated, ideally last fall for a current spring planting now. The mud is most likely the after-effect of a freshly amended planting bed and a bit too much irrigation. As long as it dries out fairly rapidly - no puddling of water for more than a few minutes - then drainage is probably fine. And really no need to have lifted and replanted the berry canes. The issues with your peppers is that they may have been planted out too early. Hot season crops - like peppers, tomatoes, corn and eggplants and most melons - need both warm air temps and warm soil temps to establish and start putting on growth. In most parts of the state, that doesn't happen until well into May - Yakima's average last frost date is not until 5/15 or so, so overnight temperatures and ground soil temperatures would not be sufficiently warm enough to keep crops like the peppers happy. And if overnight temps dropped to around 40F or so, it could even be cold enough to kill them. Try again and don't be discouraged. You will learn a lot this season and be much better prepared for next year! And come back to ask any more questions you might have.