I call it "the greening", that time of year when everything turns from brown to green, the birds are out, the rabbits are playing zoomies, it's awesome!

My wife and I have gardened from 60 miles north of the Mexico border, to 60 miles south of the Canadian border, but one thing I have learned, that doesn't mean squat because I have never gardened HERE, lol.

We finally bought our first house this last fall at the ripe ol age of late 50's, got 2/3rds of an acre with a huge backyard area, all currently hard packed sod but formerly a garden area back in the day. Tomorrow it's getting the first till with a real tractor and tiller to break up the hard stuff, followed later by some fertilizer (cow poop and straw) and then a finer till.

Approx. about 2600 sq. ft. or a little better for the first main garden, next year we'll do a little more in another section. It's good soil just by the look, feel, and smell of it, we are surrounded by miles and miles of awesome farmland, truly in America's breadbasket. I'll post some pics soon.

Would love to get any advice on this from folks knowledgeable about this area or areas similar, we are in eastern central South Dakota. In addition to the usual yearly stuff, we are also wanting to plant apple trees, possibly pears and cherries, and some berry bushes for permaculture.

So excited, it's been several years since we had a place to garden, also gonna raise some chickens, been almost 11 years since we could do that!

Still a couple weeks for that in my area.  On the weekend I'll be putting seeds in soil blocks out in the green house in covered trays on a heating pad to transplant to the garden in three weeks or so.

Knowledgeable? Somewhat... kinda...

We just started seeds- tomatoes, carrots, basil, strawberries- last weekend. They'll go in the ground along with the taters in 3-4 weeks. Sumac bush is already budding. Hoping to get a good harvest of berries off that this year.

Your soil should be a lot better than the sand and gravel we have here, so hopefully amendments won't be an issue. I have compost going, but it's not going to be ready for a few months. I think you'll have a fairly easy go of it.