It has been literally months since I could work the soil here. Finally, I spread minerals on the garden area and then removed the plastic mulch I had over the new strip on the south of the garden. Neighbors passed by and offered to roto-till the garden, but I wanted to avoid the pressure of their heavy tractor on my carefully tended soil. However, I asked them to make a quick pass over the new area of this strip - I won’t be growing on it this year and I’ll have a chance to better condition it when the weed rhizomes are loosened up. The soil was still too wet, even under the plastic, so I must wait a week or so before I till the rest.