Why not simply cover the soil with newspaper and cover the newspaper with a mulch material, leaves will be plentiful in Ohio very shortly, an dlet that take care of the weeds as well as add more organic matter to the soil.

Winter rye helps both with winter and early spring weeds, as well as giving you something nice to till in the spring. You'd have to plant pretty soon, though.

Pre-emergents are not generally recommended in a veggie bed. I assume that is what your intended use for it is? Some folks swear by corn gluten meal which is basically just a small portion of a corn kernel. Ths is the portion with pre-emergent qualities. You may find it difficult to locate and how well it works seems to be based a lot on weather/climate for reasons I don't understand. The synthetic pre-emergents are generally not labelled for use around food crops, but you might check Preen as I believe they have a formulation labelled for food crops.

Anyway, pre-emergents only kill plants trying to sprout from seed, they won't kill the perennial weeds coming back from roots and at this late date your garden certainly has many of those and they have already died back to under the soil or at least the warm season ones have.

My personal suggestion is get yourself a good weeding hoe. These work by being slid right underneath the soil and they sever the plants from their roots. Going over the beds when seedlings are present takes care of them leaving only the deep rooted perennials remaining as a problem.

Beside a weeding hoe invest in some mulch such as ground up leaves (collect them now for next year and run them over with the lawnmower before using). Alternately wood chips in a smallish size work well too. Both will enrich the soil while reducing the weeds able to grow.

If you go the pre-emergent route be aware that you will not be able to plant seeds in the garden as it will prevent them from growing as well as the weed seeds.

Mulch.

That's the only pre-emergent I use.I don't wait, when I prep the bed, after clearing all the weeds away & getting the soil ready, I cover it w/ a very thick (maybe 4" or more) layer of spoiled hay & water that down very well.

Of course, I mostly use transplants, so this is no problem.If I'm direct-sowing something, I pull back the mulch from that area, then push back in place only a thin layer to give the seedlings a chance.Once they're big enough, then I can mulch more thickly if I need to, & I'll use the smaller, shorter pieces of hay that sift out from the bales - which are easier to fit between small plants.

I mulch everything.Of course some weeds still manage to sprout, but hardly any & they're very easy to spot & pull.

HTH

I agree with Carol. Mulch is the best weed eliminator there is! Spoiled hay works great for me - again, very few weeds, and those there area re easy to pull. Helps cut down on watering, too!

Good luck!

Kathy

Leaves work pretty well for mulch too, and since halloween's over, your neighbors should be getting rid of theirs this week. I go out the night before garbage night, and just take about a dozen bags. (hey, it's trash to them, free compost for me.)
I'm a fan of a 4 prong garden fork. It'll loosen the soil enough to get your weeds. I was in a similar position 2 years ago. If I had to do it again, I would go Lasagana method.

You may consider solarizing the bed. After a thorough weeding, cover it in clear plastic and be sure to bury the edges securely. This can often simply cook and weed seeds left behind. Much depends on climate.

Here is a link that might be useful: Rural Life 2.0