Let's start at the beginning

So I've begun a garden for a number of reasons: I have a sudden glut of time on my hands and I need to stay busy so I don't sink into depression, despair, self-pity or bad day time t.v. watching; I'm broke and growing organic veggies is (hopefully?) cheaper than buying them or, God forbid, buying jarred baby food; the weather here is amazing and I feel ungrateful if I'm not outside all the time; I have about 15 pounds of baby weight left; I need to stop dreaming about when I can have enough land to be sustainable and start doing what I can with what I can; gardening is apparently good therapy.
So far I have trimmed back the plumbago (not neccessarily garden related but helpful to my parents and immensily stress releaving) picked and dug up a plot, and begun a compost bin. Daddy wanted to use a gas powered tiller and so called Home Depot for a price quote. The man on the phone suggested we pour Round Up on the grass to kill it before tilling so the roots didn't get tangled. He claimed this wouldn't affect the soil or our future plants- I was skeptical and called the Organic nursery in Tampa who confirmed my suspions that Roundup would leach into the soil. He suggested vinegar to burn the roots or I could just go ahead and till. The gas powered tiller would cost $50/day. I neither wanted to spend the cash nor wanted to use up more fosil fuels and release more carbon into the atmosphere, so against Daddy's advice, I decided to prepare my plot just using some elbow grease and a shovel.
It took me a few days ( I only worked in short bursts while Avery was napping) but it wasn't as hard going as I thought. Depsite a few minor set backs- some pretty thick roots and a PVC pipe part of the sprinkler system - I now have a lovely little patch of dirt ready to be sown.