Gardening Time!!!!

I'm so excited. We finally got our garden put in. Now, what I'm calling a garden is nothing compared to what I experienced growing up. Of course I'm also not feeding a family of 9. We have plans of getting the fence fixed, and yard leveled out this summer. Due to those plans, I'm holding off on planting anything against the back fence. Not having access to that area really limits my growing areas. I will be soo glad to get that space back. Until then, I'll just have to focus on what I have. So we planted tomatoes- romas, cherry, a golden variety, and some more "regular" kind (lol can't remember the name), cantaloupe, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, oriental eggplant, okra (a gardening first for me - so we'll see), peppers - jumbo jalapeno (perfect for stuffing) bananas and TONS of bell peppers (accidentally bought twice as many as I needed), green beans- 4 different varieties, and a watermelon plant (another gardening first- Allan talked me into that one!). I also got basil, thyme, and rosemary, and mint. From seeds we inter planted radishes throughout, plus I planted marigold seeds along the borders. I don't think Mickle could be anymore excited!!! He helped us plant. Of course in his defense we have been talking about planting a garden since last fall- but with the pregnancy, I just couldn't seem to get it together until now. I'll keep updating as our plants are grown and products are harvested. Mickle keeps checking daily on the plants and informing us that "they are growing growing growing, and one day soon- they will have stuff for us to eat!" In case you are wondering about the leaf structure that Mickle is kneeling in front of.....it's a tomato support/compost pile. I still haven't decided if I like it or not. I'll decide one way or the other after this growing season. It's a large circle of chicken wire. Then inside of that we've layered for a compost and since then we just keep adding to the top of the pile. You use the chicken wire on the outside to support your tomato plants as they grow. The pile is confined within the circle- so turning it isn't an option. You just water from the top to keep the pile moist. My issue with it is two-fold. 1- no usable compost. All the nutrients from the pile leach down into the tomato bed- which is a good thing for the tomato plants, but it doesn't help any other locations. 2. It's an eye sore. Now once the tomatoes are up around it- you probably won't notice- but we'll see. I was going to tear it down this season. I built it two growing seasons ago- and didn't put a garden in at all last year. This led to a very overgrown garden area. When I went to weed and prepare my garden plots for planting, I noticed that the weeds that were in the tomato plot were literally twice as big as the weeds in the garden plot right beside it. It appears that the composting pile works as designed. We'll know for sure after this growing season.
On a couple of other blogs I follow, I saw discussions for growing potatoes. They were using old trash cans. You place the seed potatoes in a small amount of soil, and cover them. As they grow you continue to heap dirt around the plants, forcing them to continue growing upwards. By the end the trash can should be almost full of soil, and potatoes are growing along the whole length of the now underground stem. You can also stack tires to grow the potatoes in, instead of using a trashcan. I just need to figure out where I can get some seed potatoes, or if I could just use cut organic potatoes (with eyes). The thought of growing potatoes sounds so much fun, and a great botany lesson for Mickle!