If you have a whole year, you can have an amazing garden ready for you when you move in!

You may get some good ideas from the book Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lasagna Gardening @ MEN

Repost this question to the soil forum..

You are very, very smart to get the bed prepared in advance. First is a soil test. Your local extension office can help.

When you get the test results back, you'll have some goals. If your soil is acidic, get some lime on it right away.

You might want to get started right away solarizing the grass to kill it. Cover it with a plastic sheet and let the sun do the work. A week is good, two weeks is better.

Once the grass is truly dead, you can till it if you want. I don't think there's any advantage to tilling, but do what you think it right.

Now you'll need to re-establish the soil food web. Look up the 'Interbay mulch' method, it's a variation of the lasagna idea - a compost-in-place technique. But the main idea is to apply organic matter to the surface of the soil. Two inches is about right.

You will probably want to plant a cover crop before you cover the soil with organic matter (OM) or compost. A combination of field peas, hairy vetch, rye. The concept there is to get the fungi in the soil reestablished.

Oh, and start a compost bin. Leaves that have been run over with a mower are the best, but you'll need to add some 'greens' to make the leaves break down, greens such as grass clippings.

Paul

Thanks for the advice! Think I'll have a lot of work to do!

Another "name" to search is The Ruth Stout method, which is the way my 90-year-old Aunt gardens. She just doesn't have a "name" for it.

Just think of the amount of compostable materials a new plot in the country will generate :-D

While you're planning, don't forget the increase in wildlife! Those country critters are hungry! It is so much more fun to build a fence before they've eaten up your first crop.

I was just gonna say look into a fence for the area. Not many deer in the city but in the country they will look at your garden like the new buffet in town.

Also look into square foot gardening. I use a lot of the ideas from there but I'm in ground.

You could consider getting some aged manure to spread with the leaves and grass

And I second the soil test.