Reddit reviews The Vegetable Gardener's Bible: Discover Ed's High-Yield W-O-R-D System for All North American Gardening Regions

The Vegetable Gardeners Bible

It is the only bible I own. It includes everything from preparing the soil to working with compost. It includes sections about common plants and specific ailments and solutions. I heartily recommend this book.

http://www.amazon.com/Vegetable-Gardeners-Bible-High-Yield-Gardening/dp/1580172121/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251859999&sr=8-1

I've also heard great things about the square foot gardening method.

Lots of great advice below, but I would start by finding someone when a rodatiller if you can and turn under everything. Or, get out a shovel/hoe to turn over the soil and burry the weeds and start doing a little bit every night this week (you will probably want to go about 8-12 inches down). Then go to the library and get this book: http://www.amazon.com/Vegetable-Gardeners-Bible-High-Yield-R-D/dp/1580172121. Start reading at the beginning and you will get lots of great ideas to prepare your soil for next year and then a play by play for each crop you may want to grow next year and how to do everything for each one (seed to harvest.) Then, try to find some manure and spread it all over the soil in the next week or 2 and use your shovel/hoe to work it into the top layer of soil a bit. You should be good to go for the winter and ready to get going in the spring!

If i were you i could buy this book. I got this book for christmas this year and was impressed with the amount of information in it. There are entire sections of cycling plants as to no deplete nutrients from the soil. Plants to plant with and near one another so they can help combat each other's possible insect problems. It is worth picking up!