If you put round up on it--just be patient. Round up will kill the weeds. It sometimes takes two weeks for it to die off. Make sure that rain doesn't wash off the round up. Sometimes, I water my area - getting the weeds to put out a little new growth and zap them with round up. Also, when the soil is disturbed, more weed seeds sprout. It's a never ending battle. Sometimes I water well, or after a rain and use heavy duty garding gloves and take a section at a time and start pulling out the weeds. That's if I don't want to wait for the round up to work.

If you used Round Up do not dig up the plants and you won't need a tarp. Round Up takes about 2 weeks to work, it moves down the leaves to the roots of the plants and the plants need to be actively growing! If you dig them up, the Round Up doesn't get a chance to work. Wait 10 days to 2 weeks, respray any green stuff with Round up, wait another 2 weeks and spray any remaining green stuff again. That should be enough.

You should then put down a 2-3 inch layer of mulch (can do that about 1 week after the first application of Round Up). The mulch will help prevent new weed seeds from taking hold. About 1 week after the second application of Round Up you can plant your garden; just be careful applying Round Up for the third time so you don't get it on the new desirable plants.