We've already discussed those things, leeneia. :)

The no-till method has drawbacks. The soil is better if it is turned over, and if it seems too hard to work in at the beginning of the garden preparation there are ways to increase the friability (breaking it into small pieces). Here is a post from an organic gardening site I moderate - this guy posts a lot of lawn advice but it also applies to getting this disused bed ready for gardening. The question was originally about aerating the soil in preparation for planting a lawn:

I'm going to suggest you do not go to the trouble of aerating. Instead, use shampoo to soften your soil. Healthy soil is like a sponge. When it is dry it is very hard. When the first drop of moisture hits, it does not soak right in. It takes a few seconds before it soaks in. Once it soaks in, the soil becomes very soft. Shampoo can help create this process.

Use cheap, generic, shampoo. Apply from a hose end sprayer at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. Apply right before you irrigate (1 inch). Next month spray it again. That should be all you need for the rest of the season. Then sit back and wonder at the amazing soil as it softens during rain and after irrigation and hardens up again a few days later.

I think hydrogen peroxide also works this way, but the shampoo is cheaper to apply. This tip had to do with soil where grass was growing, but the same preparation principle applies with the garden - once you've softened the soil, then if you can find it add lava and and mix in, to help it hold water, or even sprinkle in some decomposed granite for the trace minerals. Home Depot sells bags of generic top soil, humate, playground sand, decomposed granite, any of these you can scatter over the top and mix in. You're not paving the bed with any of these amendments, you're building up the soil.

I would suggest that you designate a part of the bed for compost and drop all of your weeds on that spot. Water it along with the rest of the bed and turn it over regularly. Next year you can spread that out in the garden.

It is no longer a good idea to use bales of coastal hay in the garden - that is a form of Bermuda grass, and like a lot of hay, is grown with herbicides to kill off clover and other legumes. These are harmful to your garden crop. Here is an article. If you have alfalfa hay with a mix of other weeds in the bale, it is more likely to be okay. Livestock growers have to be careful of the herbicide in the hay also.

You can use layers of newspaper over the existing weeds if you want a "lasagna" effect, but that will take a lot of newsprint, and again, is a technique better used when you have an idea about what kind of soil and characteristics you're working with first.

SRS