What is the best way to get rid of a garden full of weeds, before I plant flowers?

Black Belt in Awesome!™☠: What is the best way to get rid of a garden full of weeds, before I plant flowers?
I plan on beginning my gardening this weekend. My garden currently consist of a large patch of soil loaded with weeds. What is the best way to get rid of these weeds and make sure they don’t come back this summer? There is nothing planted in the garden right now, so anything goes in getting rid of the weeds.

Answers and Views:

Answer by joey
clean and clean

Answer by 187 mafia
use roundup weed control. All you do is spray it on and it kills the weeds in a few days.

It’s that easy !

Answer by Tori
Be careful about using chemicals if this is going to be a garden for things you plan on eating. Unfortunately the best way is just to turn it over with a shovel and pull out all of the weeds. Some will come back. If you want to clear out the weeds again for next year, at the end of the summer, you might want to try covering the area with a sheet of black plastic. When the sun shines it gets too hot and with no light it will will kill some of them.

Answer by redleader
If you have a few days or a week to wait, lay a sheet of black plastic (available in rolls at home centers or just use trash bags) over the garden when temperatures are warm.
Any weed seeds under the plastic will “cook” and become unviable when temperatures are in the 70+ degrees F range.
Otherwise, boiling water works great or you can spray Roundup if temperatures are warm enough for it to work (when weeds are actively growing).
Good Luck.

Answer by 18gibbs20
I wouldn’t put Roundup or any other chemicals in where you’ll be planting a garden afterwards. I would simply strap on my ipod and go out on a nice day and start pulling by hand.

Answer by heero_krishna
Normally something like round up becomes inactive once it hits the soil, so killing everything with roundup, waiting for it to all yellow and then turning it over with a shovel or tilling it under would be fine and not hurt anything you plant in the future.

Answer by greencaddyman
rent a tiller, use it. wait another day and use it again. Till at least 6-8 inches down. If you cannot get a tiller, put in some work and do it with a shovel and pull weeds and throw them away with yard waste.

Answer by michelle g
The answer with the black plastic is a good one. This process is called solarization and does work well. It is better if covered in the fall and then left to “cook” the weeds until your ready to plant. Solarization is really being hailed as a good organic weed control. I have tried it and had very good sucsess. Another effective natural way to prevent weeds from coming back is to use news paper. Till or clean your soil and then cover it with news paper. You can then plant by making a cut in the paper and planting in the soil beneathh. The plants grow the weeds stay trapped. Because the newspaper will eventually break down it is much better for your soil and the world than using a manufactured weed block material.