Please help.

I am a new gardener, living in San Jose, CA (Silicon Valley). I have a tiny backyard garden and planted tomatoes, squash, parsley, coriander, chili and strawberry. I planted some roses out front.

My problem is two fold. My backyard is VERY small. I had cement poured over all 250 sq.ft of it with a tiny, 10 inch strip of soil left for about 25 feet (lengthwise). Secondly, except for the parsley, none of the other plants seem to be doing very welll.

My problem is especially the two tomato plants I planted side-by-side. The coriander and the squash plant died -- the coriander never "took" AT ALL and the squash died when I attempted to cut off parts of her as the ants were getting to her.

The chili plants seemed to be doing OK (not good, but not VERY bad). I had about three chilis through the season! Now they look like they're dying, too!

But back to the major issue bothering me - my tomato plants (cherry tomato).

As a new gardener, it never entered my thick skull to ask for advice for the pros before planting my tomatoes! I thought the space would be enough and before I knew it, the girls were all OVER the place and growing on top of each other. I didn't dare to separate them - I tried to trim / cut off parts of my squash plant because the ants were getting to her and she died! So, since I didn't want the twins to die, I let them grow on top of each other. One twin was actually dominant over the other -- and this morning I realized that the other twin was ALMOST dead except for her roots and a few leaves just above the roots.

It gets even dumber.

The dominant twin decided that growing on her sister wasn't enough. So she had even started to grow on the parsley that grew to the right of her. The parsley was getting squashed with the weight of the tomato and was beginning to show signs of distress, too.

So, today, FINALLY, I decided to cut off parts of the dominant twin. What ended up happening was that she was SO entangled with her twin AND the parsley that I had to end up cutting out BIG chunks of her. I mean, REALLY humungous. I really winced when I saw the amount of leaves and the stems I had to end up cutting out. The dominant twin now has just two major stems and a few leaves. The submissive twin has just her one stem (the other stem's leaves were all dead / brown) and a few leaves, too (about five tiny ones).

I am depressed. Losing my squash was bad enough and now I'm terrified that the twins won't make it through the winter. My neighbor said that trimming them sometimes actually protects them through the winter. I really want to know if they'll be OK. I love all my girls and it hurts to see them wilt and die. It took me a while to get over the loss of my little squash plant.

Also, that brings me to another issue concerning my roses. I have 4 rose plants that I planted in June, 2007. They are now nice and big with thick stems. My neighbor has chopped all of her roses down to just the roots with a few stems above ground (stripped of leaves). She claims this will protect her rose plants. I know she's been planning to cement out her entire backyard, so I don't know if she's kidding me or if she's being serious.

Please help me keep my girls safe through the winter. Your advice is gratefully accepted by my babies and me.

Thank you!