Here is your picture. You certainly have a bunch of them. Without going to the trouble of identifying it, I would buy a Weed Hound tool and pluck them out. -see more thoughts below the picture. You also have a disease on your grass. You might have two diseases. One is gray leaf spot. The other might be take-all patch, or take all root rot. If the dead blades show signs of spots, then you might not have the take-all disease. In addition I'm guessing you have not kept up with fertilizer this year and possibly water.

My question is: should I till all of it out before I transplant? Or can I machete/bush-hog the high stuff, roll plastic I would strongly suggest tilling this year - mow well first - to break up the soil and eliminate as much of the weeds as possible. No-till is usually reservd as an option for planting areas that have been well worked and well ammended in the past. Then ammend it well before planting. Plastic mulch is one option of course though I too question the use of plastic mulch especially "Preen landscape fabric" if going organic is your goal. There are better organic mulches available, ones that will also work to improve your soil for future planting. Consider doing some reading on the so-called lasagna bed methods. Tomatoes are heavy feeders Not really. ;) One of the most commn errors new gardeners make is excessive feeding of tomatoes. Their needs are limited, quite specific, and timed to the stages of the growing season.

I got them from NAPA auto parts store. I found others on the internet a bit cheaper (OEM from Sears or AYP sources were more), but with shipping it wasn't any great deal. I already knew of the quality of the Gates/NAPA belts since I used to work for them way back in the day. Just be sure to use the woven covered ones and not the ones that look like car belts. The operating environment will destroy them. They aren't cheap but if they go another 6 years I'll be happy.

Bluesage, I wish I had known about Image when my back yard at MoccasinLanding was solid with wild onions after my six months job in south Texas! I pulled out by root two wheelbarrows full of onions--the kind which make bulblets above and below ground. It was a twoday job. I did not poison them because the yard was on the bank of a bayou and I worried about runoff. Tsmith, yes, I had smilax in the yard too, and trimming it back w/ lawnmower was difficult for me, because it put out some kind of chemical which took my breath away. Maybe it is different from the briar of which I speak, which jumps from the ground 1/2" thick and goes straight up even 10-15' to reach a tree limb before it gets dependent on its host, and it has tremendous thorns on it. It also makes a big root ball which looks exotic if cleaned up and dried. The cotton glove and foam brush technique came in handy when my son applied poison to the poison ivy down by the bayou one year. I got into that stuff when I had busted blisters on my hands, not knowing what it looked like, never having an allergy to it before, and my hands ended up looking like boiled weiners. Since it got into my blood stream, I am now allergic to all sorts of chemicals and must be very careful.