In the 1970's there was a television show with James Crockett called Crockett's Victory Garden. He was given a parking lot and the first episodes were all about turning that hard packed dry area into a garden. He brought in tons of soil amendments (all at once) to fix his parking lot! Assume up front that the soil is all about being "very poor, and in some places ... more rock than soil", and there's your start. It can only improve.

One trick people will urge you to use is the one of not digging up the whole shebang at once by making board beds coming up from ground level. That allows you to concentrate efforts on one piece at a time. It also minimizes digging in the rocks. If you have excess money, try square foot gardening, perhaps the most expensive way to go if you're trying to do everything at once.

But the most important rule for me to follow is you're always working for next year. Plan ahead. Rushing for time is your enemy.

While you are planning and pondering I would cut all those weeds cut down and pile them into a compost heap. Add your kitchen waste and when you finally start gardening you will have a free source of compost. Keep cutting the weeds even if you don't start digging them yet because you do not want them to flower and seed.

What climate is this?

There are several approaches to converting abandoned land to a garden. They vary with cost, effort and time frame.

If you are willing to wait until next year to plant, you could mow the weeds, cover with some weed-proof barrier (cardboard and thick mulch or plastic weed fabric) for several months to a year. That will kill the weeds and leave you with a cleared soil to begin with next year (or this fall if you are in a warm area).

If you wanted to garden in this spot this year, you can but it will take more work. As mentioned, mow the weeds, till or turn the soil, add soil amendments. Or do some raised beds.

I'd strongly recommend getting your soil tested, or at least inspected by an expert, so you can get an idea of what is lacking. It does no good to add more of things your soil already has in excess.

For the tilling/turning, probably best to hire someone with power equipment to that work. It is backbreaking if you have a large area.

And, there is nothing that says you can't mix these approaches on different parts of your plot. Say put in a small raised bed or two for this year's garden, while just mulching the rest for next year.

Good luck...

I'll add that your soil isn't going to yield well the first year or two. It takes time to build up the organic component of soil, adding it in stages.

Raised beds will provide quicker satisfaction, but you'll still have to haul in the soil or mix to fill them.

Google Lasagna Garden. If you start in the late summer/fall you should be able to began gardening in the coming spring. Lasagna gardening will turn any area into dark crumbly soil. The best part is you don't have to dig AT ALL. And you get fat worms to do the tilling for you. I've done it and the area where I have applied the lasagna method dramatically improved and even though I didn't add much organic matter to the area in subsequent seasons the plants that grow there are still very robust and healthy years later.

What about that large evergreen plant with its roots and shade?

Check out straw bale gardening. You will first plant directly in the bales of straw. Next season straw is decomposing and you can add some more produce, leaves, etc. and make a lasagna garden.
There is a method to the straw bales. Need to add some doses of fertilizer, get them wet and let them get hot from the fertilizer for a couple of weeks before planting.

I will give you the title of a book that will tell you absolutely everything you need to know to turn your little patch to a full-blown production machine. I've read this book cover-to-cover 3 times so far, and I plan to read it every year from now on (I haven't read any other book on gardening more than once, and most not all the way through). I have, so far, not found one bit of questionable information in what I consider to be the "Bible" of gardening!

Here is a link that might be useful: Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times by Steve Solomon

Much good advice above. If it was me, because I a patient, I would do the cardboard and mulch idea. When I bootstrapped a new garden we did a thick mulch of mushroom compost, left it for a few months, and found the soil totally transformed.

Do that and then grow plenty of deep rooted vegetables, especially legumes.

See also "no till gardening."

I see now that you are in Japan. You can watch some of his YouTube videos and see what you think.

Here is a link that might be useful: Steve Solomon on YouTube

It looks like you may have some quackgrass. That is bad news. You will need to extract every grass root and root segment. It will come back, because you cant get every root the first time, and sometimes they are just too deep to get at. Consider this a multi-year project, because you can't disturb the (wanted) plants you have very deeply. But pull what shoots you can see immediately - the roots still need green growth to support the new roots it will try to spread.

Barriers are only somewhat effective as the root tips are as sharp as needles and can penetrate about anything softer than concrete. I have actually seen it growing through the bottom of an above groung swimming pool (under the water!). You mentioned that you want to grow organic. This is fine because even herbicides like Roundup need to be applied during the proper growth cycle to kill the root joints from which it spreads. Also, a root tip may grow several feet horizontally before finally emerging into a green shoot.

I realize that this is a lot of information for a seemingly simple weed, but just look at the picture. (Some will recognize it as I have posted it before.)
As others have mentioned, vegetable gardening is a process, not an event. Best wishes for your new garden.
-Terry

Here is a link that might be useful: Quackgrass

If what we can see in the picture is the whole extent of the area it could actually be dug by hand over one weekend. Especially if you could get two people working on it.

I've had potatoes pierced by grass like that - pretty commonly, in fact. I think many rihzomeous species can do it.

pnbrown - It's nice that you are so accomodating of weeds (live and let live, as they say.) But the OP was asking for advice on eliminating weeds.

Oh, and I didn't notice any nut sedge or Johnson grass in the picture provided (but I could be wrong.)

This post was edited by terry_neoh on Mon, May 5, 14 at 17:45

Another book that may be worthwhile checking out is Paradise Lot. The authors document how they evaluated the lot they owned including remediating soil, planning beds based on needs, etc and ended up with a wonderful garden over time. The book may prove inspirational.

I dug my garden out three years ago that is the same size as yours. It was basically a weed patch with hard dry rocky soil. I dug it out by myself in about three days. Just me and a shovel. I have beds that I plant in but they are not raised. .. My soil is pretty decent from adding compost over the years. Around my beds though I still have a weed problem but it's manageable. It can be done!

I doubt the OP will be back to read any of this.

Milehighgirl, thanks for the recommendation on the book. Started reading a sample online then ordered. Wish I had had that when I was starting my garden years ago. Still finding really useful tips, though, and I've been gardening for a long time.

Rent a Rototiller or buy one (link URL below). It will rip out all roots, rocks and weeds. You can then till in some compost, add organic nutrients like Rock Phosphate, green sand, Blood Meal, Bone meal and you have a great start. If you have very bad soil, add in some vermiculite (expensive) but it will greatly improve your soil quality.

Alternatively you can use raised beds but that drives the cost up as you have to buy soil as well as the hardware for setting up the raised beds.

Here is a link that might be useful: Light weight but powerful tiller

We bought a refurbished mantis about four years ago and we love it. It does everything, including our 20' x 30' vegetable plot. Go for the four cycle honda engine if you can, and don't be afraid of refurbished if the dealer looks reputable. We got ours from somebody going by two guys and a dog (I think on ebay) and it's been extremely reliable. It also uses regular gas, not the oil-gas mixture some need.

Come on guys - talk about taking a sledge hammer to crack a nut. A spade and fork is plenty for a plot that size.