What's happening in the boxes?

The last three days of warm weather and showers has made a real difference in the gardens. My rubbish bin full of potatoes has gone mad with the plants at least 40 cm above the top of the bin now. I hope they flower soon or I may have to tie them up to passing planes. The cucumber plants have doubled in size but no sign of budding yet. I have enough lettuce and mesclun to feed an army this week. Still not much hope of getting the kids eating it though. The barbecue and wicker basket are full of first leaves - always a difficult thing for me to realise that I have to hold off weeding as I will probably pull out the things I want. The earth gems look very lush and the tomatoes are getting lovely thick stems and a few buds. The only difference I have noticed with the Nature's Curator plants so far is that one of the tomato plants budded a few days before the others but other than that there is no change. In fact the unsprayed broccoli looks a bit bigger than the sprayed one although the slug battered one is picking up. But early days yet.
I have just thinned my pot of oregano, and I think there will be baby beetroot for tea this week. The garlic and onions keep plugging away.
In the square foot garden I have sprouting spinach, quite large calendula, peas that need staking today, chilli that is looking well (if much smaller than everybody else's I know), lush sage and a rapidly thickening tomato. On the down side there is still no sign of the silverbeet, about half of the carrot seeds did not germinate and I have a feeling that some of that 'grass' I pulled out of the spring onions may not have been grass at all. And no green bits in the courgette square.
A friend saw my motley collection of pots, buckets, kettle, recycling bin (shush don't tell the council they gave me two) nail boxes and home made planters and came up with a really good idea. She went to the Warehouse and bought some nice looking square buckets for less than $2 each. She has filled these with compost and put in seedlings of various herbs and veg from her thinnings. These will become her Christmas presents to her family. Very green and encouraging I thought.