I know some people are opposed to tilling, but I have used a tiller in exactly your situation and done well with it. I too have a small city lot and grow organically on it, both veggies and perennials. I till at most 3' deep, tilling through the turf and then letting it rot a couple weeks before retilling and then putting transplants in it. I also use mulch over cardboard to claim areas that can't be tilled--like around my huge silver maple. It hasn't been very expensive to buy hardwood mulch and just throw that over the cardboard. Then the following year it is easy to plant into. The only problem is the plastic packing tape on the cardboard.

You might consider bribing the squirrels with sunflower seeds. Seriously. No evil eye, I have not had problems with the squirrels eating my stuff, even though one spends his days lounging on the carport roof, because me and my neighbor leave treats for them. Birds have been very helpful to me, especially robins, starlings, and grackles. They really cleaned up the bugs in my garden this year. The robins are smart enough to come as soon as I start tilling.

A really excellent book I have found is The Gardener's A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food. It has the best info on times for planting, growth, reaching transplant stage, how to figure when to start your seeds, what are possible companion plants, how many plants to start, and all sorts of stuff. Plus it includes fruits and herbs as well as veggies. Here's a link to it on Amazon.

Here is a link that might be useful: book

Start by contacting your counties Michigan State University USDA Cooperative Extension Service about having a good, reliable soil test done so you know what your soils base pH and nutrient balance is so you can correct that this fall as you start to improve that soil. Mulch material is a bit scarce now but along about October, still plenty of time to put mulch on soils, material to use for mulch will be plentiful to us, so you have lots of time to learn about your soil, amend it (if necessary), and collect enough newspaper to cover the area. Landscape fabric would not be necessary if newspaper is used. Also dig in with these simple soil tests,

1. Structure. From that soil sample put enough of the rest to make a 4 inch level in a clear 1 quart jar, with a tight fitting lid. Fill that jar with water and replace the lid, tightly. Shake the jar vigorously and then let it stand for 24 hours. Your soil will settle out according to soil particle size and weight. A good loam will have about 1-3/4 inch (about 45%) of sand on the bottom. about 1 inch (about 25%) of silt next, about 1 inch (25%) of clay above that, and about 1/4 inch (about 5%) of organic matter on the top.

2) Drainage. Dig a hole 1 foot square and 1 foot deep and fill that with water. After that water drains away refill the hole with more water and time how long it takes that to drain away. Anything less than 2 hours and your soil drains too quickly and needs more organic matter to slow that drainage down. Anything over 6 hours and the soil drains too slowly and needs lots of organic matter to speed it up.

3) Tilth. Take a handful of your slightly damp soil and squeeze it tightly. When the pressure is released the soil should hold together in that clump, but when poked with a finger that clump should fall apart.

4) Smell. What does your soil smell like? A pleasant, rich earthy odor? Putrid, offensive, repugnant odor? The more organic matter in your soil the more active the soil bacteria will be and the nicer you soil will smell.

5) Life. How many earthworms per shovel full were there? 5 or more indicates a pretty healthy soil. Fewer than 5, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, indicates a soil that is not healthy.
to see and learn more about what you presently have and what more needs to be done to improve that soil.

Here is a link that might be useful: MSU CES

thanks for the great advice, I'll print and show this to my husband.

So the newspaper/mulch method is the way to go to kill the sod and weeds? About how long does that take, and when should we put it down - late Fall? I have seen such vigorous infiltration of the grass and some persistent weeds in various areas I've tried to keep on top of that I assumed we'd have to remove the top layer of sod next year, vs. tilling it in as suggested. That really works to just grind it all in together, roots and all?

As to the squirrels and birds... I have been feeding them a primo diet for 4 years, and my back yard is pretty much snack central. I've found that doesn't necessarily keep them out of other stuff, though, and the feeding is now drawing pigeons, which I really don't want. Plus I don't want a lot of poop on my cucumbers, etc. I'll probably have to wean everybody off the handouts in the coming months and hope the seasonal robins will take care of some of the pests. They love our perennial garden because it's always got swarms of bees, butterflies and various critters for them to eat. Lotsa worms, too.

I know we do have clay soil in this area, and I always hit it about 6-8 inches down, but we were surprised at how good the topsoil looked when we dug up sod in the front last year to expand the front flower beds, so I'm hoping we'll find some good dirt in the back, too, though it probably won't be deep enough, we'll have to amend the clay soil. My husband has been composting behind the garage, and I wonder if we can get some accelerating bacteria to maybe speed things up a bit, he has been hogging what little we can make for his herb garden. He says the compost we can get free from the city isn't right for a veg. garden, since it might have stuff in it we wouldn't want around plants we are going to eat, is that true?

Anyway, thanks again, I'm excited and wish I had started on this last Fall, I'd be harvesting my lunch right about now.

I put down cardboard (or newspaper at least 6 sheets thick and overlapping) and then mulch over that anytime during the year before the ground freezes. Then in the spring it is good for digging into. I have been doing this for years. I till pretty much the whole garden once a year, usually in spring to incorporate whatever grew and whatever I want to add (not much, usually). I only till about 3" deep, max. I have not had a big problem with weeds because a) I plant rather closely, kind of pushing the envelope in terms of spacing because I want the plants to shade out weeds and lessen the need for mulching and b) I hoe. Hoeing is not at all bad if you have a good hoe. I use a stirrup hoe. I actually enjoy cutting their little heads off.:) I don't use raised beds, either. To me that is just extra work and money. I use regular 4' wide rows with 18" between, each row having a double length of soaker hose. Works good for me, especially because my beds can follow the curves of the sun in my yard instead of being straight, but lots of people love those raised beds.

Some people would object to my practice because I don't use a lot of mulch once the stuff is planted. I hoe instead ('dust mulch'). It depends on how much water is in the soil and what is growing there. I have a bed that is pretty dry with no mulch that works well because the plants there like that--they're mostly Artemisias, although I also have a bunch of peppers there that are doing well. Those I have mulched with composted manure. Then I have most of the veggies in beds very thickly planted that get a lot of water and no mulch because they don't need mulch--they create their own shade. I keep the space in between rows very small, like 12"-18". I have also tried living mulches, like letting wild portulaca grow and weeding out everything else in between my tomatoes. This worked pretty well, but I think it was actually more labor intensive than having no mulch at all, because I had to hand pull the weeds instead of hoeing. For watering, I use soaker hoses and water only in the early morning, so it has time to soak in before it gets hot and is wasted in evaporation. Yes, people say you have to cover them. I have never covered them and in my highest watering months I think my water bill has increased maybe five bucks. Covering them for me just gets in the way of hoeing.:)

I have clay and I think it is great for growing. Everyone complains about it, but I have gardened in sand and I would take clay any day. Clay has tons of nutrients in it. As long as it doesn't get sopping or get hard on top, it is good to grow in, in my experience.

I guess what you can use the city compost for would depend on what it was made of. It must be grass and yard waste, no? It might have broadleaf herbicides in it, which wouldn't be good for your garden. I usually get composted manure instead, although the local prison has a program where they give away compost made out of food scraps. I haven't gotten around to trying that yet, but you might see if your local prison, if you have one, has such a program. I think that would be quite safe and you sure can't beat the price.

I know what you mean about next year. I am already planning my next-year garden. Definitely going to be more peppers!

The newspaper covered with a mulch works very well, providing you do not have some very invasive grass such as quack grass or Johnston grass, both of which spread via rhizomes, long roots with growth nodes every 4 to 6 inches. The newspaper will not stop them but will encourage them to grow even more. The only way to eliminate them is to dig out all of the roots and rhizomes you can find. The wimpier grasses, in our area, such as the blue grass, fescues, and perennial rye will die out when deprived of sunlight, as will other "weeds".
If the soil is kept properly mulched, all during the growing season, not only will "weed" growth be suppressed, but soil moisture will be conserved, your plants will grow happier because the soil is cooler and moister, erosion of soil is better controlled, and you will be feeding your soil with what is needed.
Adding some bacteria to your compost is not necessary, but the bacteria that are there may need more Nitrogen so they can get to work and digest the high carbon material in the mix, or the compost may simply be too wet (this is what I see most often) or maybe it is too dry for them to work.

thanks for the input, again. I know for sure we have that type of grass that puts out runners, though in the front we have coming up right now what my husband says is quack grass, and you can pull it up easily, short little roots, they come right out. If I had nothing but time, I'd sit out there all day and pull it, it's oddly satisfying...It's a lighter green, thicker blades, and grows faster than the rest of the lawn. I'm not sure what percentage of the back lawn is the more stubborn grass, but any sod I've dug anywhere seems to have some long roots when I turn it over, and I had to dig a deep trench in the front and fill with both landscape fabric and sand before laying a brick border to have any hope of keeping it out of my flower beds.

Maybe we should still do the newspaper thing, hoping for the best - that the "wimpier" plants and grass will die off, but we will plan to dig vs. till in the Spring, since some of the more vigorous grasses might have been encouraged by that method?

I would love to just pay some professionals to come out and deal with it with big machines or something, take out the whole lawn in one shot, but I don't think it's going to be in the budget. We might be able to rent something at Home Depot and do it ourselves... hmmm.....

My husband wants to do raised beds for easy access, since he's had success with that in the past, but I'm not looking forward to building them. One thing I'm trying to consider is looking ahead to resale, and whatever we do back there has to be attractive or easily converted a less custom situation when the time comes to move.

We're supposed to get some storms later today, and if we get a good rain, I think I'll go out there and dig a few feet square to see what I'm dealing with. I work at home at a computer all day and it's hard to get enough exercise and sunshine... maybe if I just dug a few feet out each day over the next month and mulched as I went along, I could get at least the planting bed area cleared for next year.

As kimmsr mentioned, you might be able to speed up the compost by adding nitrogen. I'm still new at this, but adding about 7 to 10 pounds of coffee grounds to my pile (3 foot diameter, started out about 2ft tall) really gave it a good boost.

It also helped that I did a rebuild of the pile -- meaning that I moved everything instead of just turning in place -- and added the grounds as I went. An inch of grounds, several inches of what I was composting, another inch of grounds, several more inches, etc. All by eyeballing it and it was pretty dark outside, so the amounts were _Really_ rough.