"consistantly burns his trash (plastics and all)."

There are few places that I know of that this is legal. maybe it still is in Pensyltucky. Big time bad practice. I dare say I'd drop a dime on him (and I live in the land of "Live Free or Die").

You might try the container gardening board for really good answers to these questions if you want to go with containers.

Organic seeds- try www.highmowingseeds.com .

More compost is better compost- 50/50 with garden soil is a great start, but I'm sure that the "experts" will debate that.

Bigger containers are better containers for tomatoes- 5 gallon buckets will work. Smaller containers tend to dry out faster- one of the disadvantages to container gardening. The fact that they warm up quick in the spring is a plus, however, when starting out.

Strawberries will send out runners and multiply- are you sure you can't plant in the ground? They come back every year, getting stronger.

Tomatoes are very easy in containers, good compost with a light soil mixture. Choose a tomato that doesn't produce huge fruit. Strawberries might present a problem for you in that you need to protect the plants over next winter. Can you bury the container next fall? Standard practice is to not harvest berries the first year. I have an acre of strawberries plus lots of other fruits so I am glad my neighbor's only idiocy is his dog. The dog isn't stupid, but the neighbor is.

I'm relatively new to gardening as well -- only been at it for a few years. Just wanted to say, go for the cherry tomatoes. Every year I plant some cherries and some regular, and the cherries are always easy and delicious even when my soil conditions were not so ideal (it was pretty compacted -- hard to dig through -- and I think it had too much clay, but I'm not even sure). Anyway, be sure to plant some cherry tomatoes, they are fun and easy and more "instant gratification".