Hi boobearcookie27. Welcome to gardening! there are so many friendly experienced gardeners here to help you along the way. i'm more of a newbie as well, but i'll let you know what worked for me. My first year gardening i was so anxious to start i put the plants in without amending the soil(huge mistake!)--so you are already one step ahead!

so, if you are not in a huge hurry to get plants in, my advise is to start amending your soil with shredded fall leaves, untreated grass clippings, and manure(if you can get it--many farms will give it for free) now & throughout the fall and let it sit & break it down over the winter. I even dig in my kitchen scraps right into holes in the garden & and put newspaper down (worms love the paper). used coffee grinds are good as well. many coffee shops will give you their used grinds for free. Then supplement with bagged compost in the spring-you can dig it right into the planting holes. it may take a season or two, put you should start to see your soil really change, and you will need much less bagged/expensive soil.

hopefully some veterans will chime in as well!

best of luck.

forgot-I enjoyed the book "the well-tended perennial garden" by tracy disabato-aust. it has a lot of pruning techniques but she also does explain a lot about prepping beds, choosing plants, etc....

Don't use any kind of tarp, plastic, landscape fabric, or other synthetic type of barrier. You will regret it later, and there is no good way to regularly amend the soil and improve it. If you must, use a layer of old cardboard or newspapers, and pile on leaves (ground up even better). The leaves will start to break down, and lots of worms and other soil organisms will start working to improve the soil, Any weeds that do try to poke through a thick mulch like that will be fairly easy to pull by comparison, since the soil will be softer and more moist. Don't let anything go to seed (weeds), ever! Pull them before they can expand. There won't be many because of the thick mulch. I have picked up hundreds of bags of leaves from around my neighborhood the last few years as I've gotten extensive garden spaces going over a half acre lot. After just two years, my yard is amazing - and weeds have not really been significant - which is even better. Flowers, food/vegetables, fruit and trees, lots and lots of herbs. And it has been with almost nothing but those leaves and compost I make with the leaves and kitchen waste that I got for free.

Ditto the above statement on not using plastic, tarp etc....

I use cardboard boxes to control weeds for large spaces in my garden. Then cover them with mulch...could be leaf mulch or wood chip mulch.

Ditto on the addition of manure (older) manure. If fresh manure you run the risk of weed seeds in manure germinating.

I also add fruit and veggie scraps right into my beds. Cover with mulch and let nature takes its course.

A great inexpensive way to get a lot of coverage on the cheap is to sow seeds. Many flowers and herbs start easily from seed. A few of my favorites are: zinnias, marigolds, sunflowers, moss rose (portulaca), and sunflowers....I know I mentioned them already, but they deserve mentioned again. There are so many to choose from.

Start a compost pile/bin ASAP....The benefits from this "black gold" is invaluable.

I garden organically. Here's my logic. By going organic (not using chemicals/poisons) it allows the good bugs and organisms to do their work.... If you use poisons it not only kills bad bugs...it also kills/rids beds of all the good bugs, frogs, worms, birds, etc.

Do a little research on this site and other online sites. Read, take notes, do a little homework.