Olympus e-PM2 - what am i doing wrong?

Congratulations!  These look great, good start!

A note about using A mode or P mode - usually P mode works really well for beginners (and advanced users, too), which is why I suggested it.  You can keep an eye on what the camera chooses and make adjustments as needed.

However, I've found that these cameras tend to make somewhat unfortunate aperture choices with the kit lenses - lots of f11 and even f13 when shooting in bright sun.  Not sure why this is, except perhaps Olympus is trying to mimic what you'd get if using a digicam (small aperture/big F number makes everything focused).  That doesn't happen with the more expensive lenses, where you are more likely to get much larger apertures (providing selective focus, blurred backgrounds, lower ISO) when using P mode.  There is nothing inherently wrong with f11, but as you progress you will probably want to start isolating focus and sharpness rather than having the whole photo sharp. The lenses are usually sharpest at f5.6 or f4, but that's a pixel peeping issue and not important at this stage, you won't notice any difference and neither will anyone else.

So you have the choice of using P mode and keeping an eye on the aperture setting (if you care) or using A mode to set the aperture yourself. If you use A mode in bright sun, you'll have to keep an eye on the exposure warnings just to make sure you aren't overexposing.  Not usually a problem for most folks, but those of us in really sunny bright areas do have to pay attention.