Gardening for Greenhorns

When The Husband and I moved from the East to the West coast we were prepared for a lot of differences.  What I am continuing to be struck by is the small ways in which these differences make themselves known.  I knew that if you wanted to plant anything in a garden in Virginia you should aim for after the last frost but still pretty early say April/Mayish.  (You shouldn't actually take my word on this as I was never actually the one to do the planting.)  When it got around to late May/June here in Washington and I wanted to plant some sort of herb/vegetable garden I was sure it was too late.  I can't remember the last time we had a frost and even though it's been raining the temperature has been picking up, so I assumed the growing season started much sooner.  What I then learned is that if you don't care about growing things from seed (and let's face it I couldn't keep a pot of grass alive in college so herbs/vegetables were going to be a stretch regardless of what stage they started in) you could start a garden pretty much anytime between May and early July.  Thus, a couple of weekends ago The Husband and I found ourselves creating this: