Let me start by saying there are many ways to skin a lawn. I'll let you know what I do and why (remembering that I'm in a very different climate than you are.) Why-I'm impatient and lazy therefore I don't like to dig till or weed much. Also, here in FL nematodes can be a big problem in the native soil so doing raised beds without any native soil kinda sidesteps the problem. Oh, and I also don't own a tiller. What I do-Having just moved into this house I was eager to get a garden started. (owners before me used lots of chemical fertilizer, no mulch or amendments, and the ground is sand.) I plunked down cardboard boxes and filled them with the free compost from our county and planted right in them. This made for a quick raised bed garden for the spring season. Over the too hot to garden summer we preped some new planting areas for the fall garden. The other half who isn't as lazy as I did dig out the grass from a couple of beds and amend with mushroom compost. Myself, I layed out cardboard which got covered/mounded with mushroom compost and then covered with wood chip mulch. This fall we already have been harvesting squash and the cucumbers and zucchini are not far behind (those are planted in the mounded mushroom compost on top of the cardboard.) There is also amaranth, sorghum, pumpkins, and corn growing in similar beds. Tomatoes and peanuts are growing in the dug beds. I personally like the no dig lasagna type gardening but have not had much luck growing things like carrots that way. Carrots did great in the cardboard boxes filled with compost though. Check and see if your county waste management offers compost to residents, if so the cardboard box idea could get you quick greens for the fall while you work on the in ground garden. You can usually get tons of sturdy cardboard boxes from a produce market. For big expances of cardboard, try the dumpsters behind a rental center. I also get mushroom compost really cheap since my neighbor works at the local mushroom farm. I also have any tree services I see working in the area dump their chips in front of my house, they are usually happy to find a place nearbye to dump the chips and I have gotten three loads this way. Things to keep in mind. 1-I've found that mowing right up next to the raised beds is difficult. In the future I will extend the weed blocking paper/cardboard beyond the planting area and make a mulch covered pathway to help keep grass/weeds further from the planting beds. This will also help with the cardboard boxes, to make an extra layer of cardboard under them and extending out and cover with mulch. 2-The cardboard boxes will break down over time and you can pull the sides away and hoe the contents to get rid of weeds after the plants are done. 3-This all depends on the type of grass and weeds you are dealing with. If you have something like bermuda grass, you should probably dig it up and pull it out. I understand it often comes back even stronger if you just try to smother it under mulch and tilling it it might not be the answer. As to your question about adding amendments. First, have you had a soil test done? You might want to hold off on spending money on many amendments until you know if you really need them or not. (having too much of a nutrient can be as bad as not having enough and something like lime should only be used if your soil is acidic and needs it.) Compost would be the exception, go ahead and add that if you like before tilling if you really feel you must till. Good luck and I hope this helps.

Where in the world you are can be of tremendous assistance to some of us, although my soil is sand while my sisters soil (6 miles west of me) is clay. Usually sand atop a clay base indicates that someone dumped some sand there in an attempt to have a soil kind of easier to cultivate then the clay would be. The clay, under that sand, will keep that sand from draining properly, two different soil types with vastly different drainage capabilities. I would talk with the people at your local office of your state universities Cooperative Extension Service to find out what your soil type shoulld be.

The when is NOW! Perfect time, because as mentioned above, the heat will help compost down. I did sunn hemp last summer and doing it again this summer as my research found it to be the best at adding nitrogen, repelling nemotodes, and amending my sand (no soil here!). I'm sure that horse manure is great, but I don't have the means to transport that. So, last year, my first year of creating soil, I did a lot of leaves and alfalfa. I was pleased with the results. I have lots of compost and leaves this year, so skipping the expense of alfalfa (although I chose it because it was the cheapest). I'm still doing the sunn hemp. Becca

I use a green compost bin that our city loans people to have r vegetation hauled away. Then I put c. a foot of broken crockery on the bottom and a few sawed up branches for drainage, as the bin lacks holes and I put all my fruit and veg trimmings, egg shells and used tea bags in it, after it is 1/3rd full I mix in some chicken manure tea, I use only enough fluid to dampen it, because the bin has no holes in it. then I keep adding the fruit and veg et cetera until it's 2/3rds full , add some more manure tea, I also put in the cardboard rolls from paper towels and toilet paper, and used paper plates. Then after it sits there for c. 6 weeks I turn it out into a 6' long by 2 feet deep trench for it to break down more. As I take it out of the bin I mix it up more, as aeration is an important part of making compost. When I pre-soak the larger chunks of fruit, the completed compost takes a third less time to break down. I make compost c. 4 times a year. It is better than c. 90% of the compost I've ever bought. I used to feel silly giving all my compost to be hauled away by the garbage crews and then paying c. 8 bucks a bag for compost from a store. Now I have wonderful compost at all times available without having to lug it home. One of my favorite gardening memories: when a new batch of compost was ready for her garden, my mother used to run her hands through that rich, dark and friable substance while she wore a soft and endearing expression; as if she were seeing not compost, but was viewing something enchantingly wondrous, as I would if there were colorful precious gems in front of me. As a child I used to think mom was a bit eccentric. Not so much now. Lux.