With very little usable garden space in our yard we had to make do with what we could use. This space where we had to cut down a blue spruce seemed to be just right. The blue spruce was unfortunately growing sideways and almost fell on the neighbors house this year.
I had some cardboard from a friend moving and I bought a single bale of straw.
The area was already less "weedy" because the tree debris, so it was meant to be, since no grass was there growing already.
We laid out the cardboard where wanted to stop the weeds from growing.
I even had it resting on the back fence wall to keep the neighbors weeds out too.
Start laying out straw over whole area about 2 feet deep.
Fill with soil and re- build nest. I laid rows with in the the bed. The back row has sunflowers, popcorn, and garbanzo beans planted there. The front row has summer squash and zuchinni's. The barrels have cantelope growing in them. This cheap and efficient gardening method is great because you can expand a little each year, use it as a compost during the winter months and the straw gets really warm so it kills weeds below and increases soil temp for really great produce production.