Alicia,
That link is a good one for sure I will be using it myself. And thanks to CODI for the help and for sharing with people as he did so well.

TOMATOES:
I am germanting a large batch of tomatoes right now and started them in late FEB. I will be selling some at farmers market in spring for cash and planting some. I had an amazing year in 2008 using compost/compost tea. Ended up with 8' tall cherry tomatoes plants and giving away bucket loads to neighbors and freinds. I go about 2 weeks using only cotton and water the I start using light amount of sheep compost made by my cousin from his farm. I simply sprinkle some filtered compost around the base of each seedling and within 2 days they explode! It is amazing to watch them develop and excelerate after feeding them some high quality compost. They stems get hairy and the second leaves pop out along with the size increase. The color goes from light green to deeper green by then and this is how I know I am getting it right. Sheep compost is high in post ash too so later in fruit stage we continue to use this compost and I make compost tea from it.

POTATOES:
We also went and filled the truck with decomposed leaves from the recycling center that were 99% composted due to the amount of time they have been piled there along with the huge piles creating a perfect microbial envirenment. Anyway we did potatoes last year using a a simple pile or mound of leaves and never had to dig a hole in the ground. But the leaves look more like compost or dirt than leaves like I said these leaves have been in a large pile and moved around by the city with a bulldozer so in a sense they were "turned" and mixed over a period of 2-3 years and looked black as coal.

I shoved it all by hand in and out of my truck so it was work..but worth it to me. The potatoe mounds were all done next to my green house. This was all an experiemt to see if we could simply put potatoes in these piles (small mounds) and let them go. And they did so well I am going to get a truck load of leaves this spring and do it again on a larger scale then can or air seal (the bags) then store as much as possible in the freezer for next winter. Food prices are sky high due to diesel fuel prices the farmers are paying and passing it down to the the consumers so we are going to can and store as much as possible in 2009 to offset the cost of living.

My cousin has a sheep farm and a large garden each year they can hundreds of tomatoes, along with potatoes,carrots and beans. Each jar taste as if it came straight from the garden. This is nothing new but the tradition has faded. But not for long because people are interested more and more on what we are doing with gardens and compost. I have people stop and ask if they can look at what I have been up to. Even the major is interested and I don't care if it is political or not the objective is to "promote" not debate.

Peace,

Jeff