Liza - one thing you can do is plant pumpkins! Pumpkins are fun to watch grow (they get big fast!), leafy, and you can always sell the pumpkins for like $2-$5 / ea & recoop some of your $ you spent on seedlings! Plus they're beyond super easy to grow from seeds... almost weedy like! If you can find an old metal swing set off of Craigslist or Freecycle for free or super cheap, you can use the A-frame to build the support for snap/sugar/pole beans! Just have the metal A-frame up, drape with chicken wire (metal or plastic, doesn't matter. Me personally, I like the plastic 'cuz I can use twist ties or zip ties to hold it in place, then break it down in the winter when I'm not using it), and plant at the base your vining plants. Any of the squash family will be super simple to grow as well. Corn can be put on the back part of your garden where the wind blows so you have a wind break to protect some of the other plants...
Oh this is exciting!!
One thing I would recommend if you feel your soil needs amendment is dead fish. Yes, sounds gross, smells bad, but dead fish makes a WONDERFUL natural fertilizer. If you have an aquarium, you can use dead fish from it, or when you do a water change, instead of dumping the water down the drain, drain it into a bucket & use that water to water your plants. DO THIS ONLY WITH FRESHWATER AQUARIUMS. Do NOT do this with saltwater aquariums!!!
