Would there be any benefit to breaking the ground and/or fertilizing the area where we plan to put the garden this fall in preparation for next years planting?

Big time benefit to breaking the soil down now. Get a bag or two of pellitized lime and spread it on the area.
Till everything in and sow over it with some rye. The stuff you fold under will be good organic fodder next spring as well
as the Rye cover crop. It is free nitrogen and will help build the soil.
Good luck man.

I don't know if you have a winter growing season or not down there I would imagine you do but definitely break ground now as said. You got some fertilizer in there and start to break down the weeds. The more weeds you kill the less weeds you'll have later because you have to get all of the seeds in that seedbed to germinate once they all germinate it's easy to keep up with weeding. 

As mentioned before rye grass for over the winter, Some cow manure now, I put some in last year, tons of earth worms this year,

If you plan to use manure at all, fall is the only time you should put it on your garden and it's best to be well-composted or you'll be introducing even more grass/weed seeds. It's risky to put non-composted manure on your garden in the spring for health reasons as well as some vegs and especially some melons will taste like shit - literally !!  Red clover is another good cover crop for winter to be tilled in. I always spread some 10-10-10 before my last till of the fall too. A soil test will tell if you really need the lime or not, a lot of plants like the soil just a little on the acidic side.

We recently sold all our sheep, but have quite the pile of sheep manure thats been there for years!

Soil test and lime. Fertilizer will be gone by then.

Good info.!  I do know how to get the soil test, but thanks for the info regardless.  I plan to do all this if I can get time.

ETA:  I'm far west in Possum Trot!  (near Paducah)

Get the weeds under control now. You'll still have weeds, but it can be a nightmare.

This isn't GD.

Depending on what you find under the first few inches of top soil where you’re looking to place your garden, I would amend the soil by mixing in peat moss and cow manure and making sure it’s completely broken up. I strive for close to a two foot depth for a lot of plants, so I’ve done raised beds to give me the added few inches instead of going deeper into clay. Some say even three foot would be ideal. Cover crops work well for the winter, but I’ve always used grass clippings or leaves in the fall that then get turned over in the spring. It’s a little less effort come spring time.

Like the past several years, I have had ZERO time to mess with this.  We want to grow a garden so bad, but man they require attention!

I fixed a guys rear mount tiller the other day and wanted to test it out so I tilled the area, but haven't had a chance to do anything else.

Should I cover it even since I tilled it all up?

I would say ideally you want to bring fresh soil to surface after you kill the emerging weeds. 

So, once weeds stop coming up (kill weeds as they come up), turn the soil. Don't go crazy with it, but you are trying to "sterilize" the seed bed by allowing all present weed seeds to sprout/emerge and get killed off.

Adding compost will only help. Very few places in the US have abundant nutrient rich soil. Most places outside the midwest are mostly clay.

then do a soil sample from there and adjust accordingly.


Im a firm believer of there is no such thing as too much compost.

Cover it.

This time of year is a great time to burn off.  I do it this time of year where I transition from tomatoes to garlic.  It takes care of most of the weed seed, adds nutrients, kills pathogens/disease and darkens/warms the soil for better fall garlic growing.

I had terrible soil: less than inch of topsoil then clay or sand, depending where you dug.
Fenced in 25' x 75' and put hogs on it that winter. And the next winter.
Time Ikilled them in spring had 12- 15" of rich soil.
Moved the fence and repeated.
They fertilize and till.

I am so glad I found this thread.  I am planning for a garden in the middle of my 46 acres.  I have 3 acres fenced in and I want to devote something like 100'x100' to a garden.  In another thread I saw a guy with a chicken coop on the fence line where he could rotate the chickens and garden.  That is an awesome idea.

Additionally, I LOVE the idea of black plastic.  I was considering round up, but I didn't know when to do it.  This works perfectly.  I think I will burn it off this winter, then cover it with plastic from burning time through October or so.  Being from Texas it should be complete scorched earth.  Then I'll till and plant winter rye and build a high fence around it.  Then I'll till it again in March and plant my spring garden.  That's more than a year to prepare, but I have other fish to fry like replacing the fencing around the center 3 acres so we can get a few dogs.

I am also making compost out of cattle manure in molasses bins.  It's mostly for my trees, but I'll have enough of these bins (currently 12 with more to follow each year) to make tons of compost.

I'll offer a contrasting view.

Do not break up the soil or add any soil amendments now.   Mow it short if there is grass or weeds, lay down a single layer of cardboard (all those Amazon boxes from incoming Christmas shopping are perfect ), and on top of that pile 1-2' of leaves, or grass clippings if you can still scrounge any up. Yes, I said one to two feet. Don't disturb it next spring; it will have compacted down over the winter into a nice mat of decomposing organic mulch that will both add nutrients and suppress weed growth.  Start your bedding plants indoors, and after your last frost plant them directly through the mulch layer... just wiggle it aside enough to get the plant in the soil.  Add more grass clippings or other organic mat'l as needed to keep the mulch layer thick and continuous (careful with straw... it's often loaded with wheat or oat seeds that become "weeds" when you don't want 'em there).  Keep adding to it all season long; it's FAR easier to keep adding mulch than it is to battle the weeds that will try to take back over if you slack off too much.

At the end of the first season, take some soil samples and submit them to your local Cooperative Extension office for a soil analysis (talk to them first to make sure you sample the soil correctly) to see exactly what you really need to amend the soil with, if anything.  Amend if necessary, then rinse and repeat.

Weed seeds in the top, undisturbed layer of soil have for the most part already had their chance to sprout and do their thing.  Tilling exposes more deeply-buried, dormant seeds and when you bring 'em up, you're forfeiting the headstart that Momma Nature has already given you in keeping things under control.  And there's no real need to till if you do it this way... the layer of mulch, along with snowmelt and spring rains will have turned the soil under the pile into a soft, fluffy planting media squirming with worms that is perfect for the garden to take hold and thrive.

Heavy mulch is a gardener's best friend.  It helps retain water and buffers the too wet/too dry cycle that many gardens stuggle with, and keeps the vast majority of weed sprouts from penetrating if they do happen to germinate.  The withering sprouts actually become part of the mulch layer itself... insignificant, but there's a certain gloating factor involved in knowing you defeated them and forced them to submit to your will .  You may have a few pop up around the base of the garden plants where the mulch layer has unavoidably been breached, but those are controlled easily enough by hand-weeding once a week or so.

The biggest mistake you can make with organic* mulch is applying it too thinly.  If it's not thick enough, it'll still break down, but since it's too thin to suppress weed growth, all you're doing is fertilizing the weeds as well as the garden plants - and the weeds will thank you for your efforts.  Too-thin mulch is far more harmful than helpful.

*organic in this context meaning "not artificial" (like landscaping cloth or something), rather than the non-GMO, pesticide-free, other definition.  I personally shoot for both, but I ain't dragging up that argument here.

Garden smarter, not harder.

You know that even mentioning that topic is taboo

Id just till, water, and round up.  Keep doing it until all the weed seeds are gone.

+1 to everything said here.

Absolutely... while I generally lean towards no-till, there are naturally exceptions.  Really heavy clay or super-sandy soil will definitely benefit from tilling and amending right off the bat; the solution in both cases is to get as much decomposed organic matter incorporated into the soil as you can.  And the quickest way to do it is to fire up the trusty tiller.

The real magic comes from that heavy mulch layer afterwards.  If you're doing it right, it doesn't really matter if you till up a bunch of dormant seeds or not... nothing's gonna get through it (well, nutsedge and a few other nasties aside). And of course the mulch eventually breaks down to further improve soil tilth and fertility. It's the closest thing to a magic bullet that exists in gardening... weed suppression, fertilization, water retention, soil temperature regulation, improved soil texture.  About the only downside I've ever found is that it can potentially harbor bugs, but even those are generally not the ones that attack garden plants - they prefer decomposing plant material like the mulch. (though I think some, like maybe the accursed squash bugs, may overwinter in the mulch if given the chance)

I grow and cut an acre or so of grass just to use the clippings as mulch:

Attached File


And since I just stumbled across that batch of images, my cardboard+mulch technique in action:

Attached File


(note I missed a few spots.  Protip: don't do that )

Attached File


Attached File


If you're starting to get the impression I'm a big fan of heavy mulch, I'm on the right track.  

Apologies if this is drifting too far OT.