If you want to have a fall garden, you definitely have to remove all that grass. You can save it for mulch later.

Till, then amend the soil with organic matter like compost.

9'x9' is tough because you'll have to step on parts of the garden which compact the soil. Maybe split it up into 2 plots of 4'x9' with a 1' walkway in the middle??

Thanks I like the idea of having a path in the middle. When you say remove the grass, you mean like dig down 2-3" and completely remove the layer of sod, (and weeds, roots, etc) right?

After mulch-mowing the weeds, you could try to til, or at least turn the soil. Then I'd put 1x12 or 2x12 boards or other raised bed around it, in two sections (so you can reach everything). Finally Drop a few cubic yards of premium top soil on top (to bury that mass of weed seeds and insects for a few years). Probably worth the two mintues it would take to lay a single ply of newspaper over the turned/tilled soil before you dump the top soil on top, to reduce any accidental vertical mixing of weed seeds.

Decide if you want to plant in ground or in raised beds.

If u go with a raised bed, you can remove grass or cover it with cardboard or newspaper. This will kill the grass by smothering it and it all breaks down eventually. Your soil and compost can go on top of the cardboard.

If you are planting in ground, you should remove all grass roots as best as possible or else u will have a major grass/weed problem in the future.

Pull the big stuff, mow, dig, turn the soil to 1.5x spade depth. After digging that much, it should be pretty clear what condition the soil is in (rocks, clay, etc.). I have to assume that if it was a garden before, the soil might well be quite good. In fact, that's why the weeds look so healthy. They're telling you something. Dig in compost and fresh organic matter. If you have invasive grass surrounding the plot, you might install a subsurface barrier around it.

It sure looks funny that the grass around it is well mowed, but the "garden" plot is not. Maybe their last crop was weeds? Why wouldn't they have mowed that as well? I guess there are some posts on the corners protecting the plot from the mowers, though.

I wouldn't "install" any walkway, as that's just going to impact your flexibility. Just leave a path where you don't plant, and walk there. You can decide at a later date if you want to put down a wood walkway or flagstones.

You're going to be fighting weeds and grass for a while, whether or not you try to pull the ones you see out by the roots. I wouldn't bother trying to manually kill everything there, and even good chemical fumigants are hard to come by these days.

It's pretty late for tomatoes and peppers, especially because you have a big job ahead of you, also especially if you don't have a tiller. But it'll be in good shape come spring. I guess you could try for some winter veggies, as the cool weather won't encourage growth of weeds. Have fun!

If I were starting a garden in that area, I might not want to use an area that is already weed infested. Look beyond being stuck with the weedy area and choose the best area for a garden of the shape and size you want. Don't pick a spot where water stands and don't pick the highest ground as that usually is more clayey and not as fertile...and stay away from tree roots like the plague.

That's another way of looking at it. But there are weed seeds everywhere, even in the lawn area. The grass just keeps them from growing well. The advantage of gardening in the same place is that the soil may well be a lot better than it is in the surrounding lawn area. Someone spent some time working that area, and may have improved it significantly.

So one might take a spade and dig some random holes in the plot and in the surrounding grass. If the soil looks as good there in the grass, then yes, might as well just move the plot. But you will still have grass roots there.

Just start from one side and keep pulling every thing up and take them somewhere else and let it compost. As you do pulling and clearing, might come across with things that can be saved or transplanted(like herbs).

After clearing the area, till or turn it over, rake and get rid of any roots or grass. Now depending on the condition of the native soil, you might want to dump some compost in there and till it in. Makind a raised bed is just an option and not necessary, IMO

Others have addressed the clean up portion of your question, so I'll weigh in on the "fall garden in Indiana" part. It's too late in the season for tomatoes or peppers, but if you get it cleared out by the end of July, you could plant some broccoli & early cabbage variety seedlings around August 1 for a fall crop (buy transplants from a nursery or start your own seeds inside now). You could also try sowing basil, cilantro, carrots, beets, swiss chard, and bush beans seeds -- they'd all likely mature before our October frosts (and carrots & beets will do fine even after we get a bit of frost, as would swiss chard.) Lettuce and spinach will also do well in the fall. Good luck!

Kale does well in the fall in Indiana. And it is biennial, so there will be greens early next spring. The winter before last was mild it never stopped producing.

thanks to everyone for all the information.. i've got some work to do here :) i'm sure i'll be back with more questions once i've had a chance to play in the dirt.

My opinion: forget about a garden this year. Dig a little hole and see what the soil is like. Based on your photo, it looks like it should be pretty good. Let's say it's good soil. I'm going to assume you don't have time to hand-weed this plot. Cover the whole thing with black plastic, cardboard or something to cut off the light to the weeds and kill them. This will take several weeks. If you used Roundup, you could do it in a week. Warning: if you till without killing the weeds, you'll be sorry.

Then remove any fences and debris, and till or dig at least 6 inches deep. All of the dead grass and weeds now becomes an organic soil amendment. Find out from some local experts whether you need to add lime or phosphorus. If so, till them in. This is also a good time to till in some compost. Now make two raised beds about 4 feet wide, with a path in the middle. I just rake the soil into raised beds; I don't build support walls. But that's up to you. I like raised beds because they are easy on my back.

Now keep the soil surface uncovered and moist for a couple of weeks and let the weed seeds germinate. Any roots that you didn't kill may also resprout. After you've got a nice crop of weeds growing, cover with black plastic or cardboard again until the weeds are dead. If you had planted your veggies right away, these are the weeds that you would be pulling by hand, in the hottest part of the summer.

Now your soil is ready for its first crop, but it will be too late for this year. I like to cover the soil with black plastic over the winter, to keep the windblown weed seeds out, and to keep the soil in good workable condition, so that I can start planting early in spring. Minimize tilling from here on out, to avoid uncovering more weed seeds that are lurking underground. They will sprout as soon as they get some light.

This sounds complicated, but actually it takes very little labor to follow these steps. It just takes a lot of calendar time. A 10 x 20 piece of black plastic is a good investment. Find a few stones or bricks to hold the edges down.

I do something like Lilydude for new beds or extending existing beds. I weed whack the grass/weeds down to the dirt, cover the area with a couple of inches of compost, cover that with cardboard, soak it and top the card board with more compost, or manure, then let it sit all winter. The cardboard suppresses the weeds and attracts worms, and is completely gone by spring. You can just turn it all over and plant.

I got really sick of desodding new areas, and felt like I was losing to much of the best topsoil when doing it.