Using a hoe to remove weeds is a lot easier than pulling them out?

Apart from using some kind of weed suppressor like chipped bark, stones etc, there's not a lot you can do except regular hoeing and hand weeding. If the weeds aren't too near the plants and I'm confident not to get any on my plant leaves, I use a systemic weed killer on them.

Hi, welcome to g o y, as Louisa says, using a hoe every few days will keep most of the weeds down, as it will cut them down just as they have germinated, you will then just have the more persistant perennial weeds to deal with, but regular hoeing will help with these as well.
Using weedkiller is an option, but there is always the danger that some of it will get onto the plants you want to nurture, unless you use one that you can paint onto individual weeds, {glyphosate} but it's quite expensive, especially if you have a large garden, Derek.

Thank you guys for all your helpful comments. I will look into getting some systemic weedkiller like Myron says as I have no plants in my garden as yet because of just moving house and a hoe once a week should do the trick.

Thanks again! Nickie

Ah, well I came on to say put more plants in so there's less soil showing, but obviously, you've said its not planted, and of course, if there's open ground with no plants, then nature will populate it rapidly.

If you're not going to plant anything until next year you could cover the area with black plastic sheeting. This will kill off any existing weeds and stop more growing.

There's no need to buy the expensive paint on weed killers. Just use standard weed killer in a jar and paint it on with a paintbrush. You could add a little washing up liquid to make it stickier

I agree that regular light hoeing is the answer to eliminate weeds. Done weekly any weeds which have grown in the past 7 days will be tiny and will disappear into the soil so you'll have no bending. Hoeing weekly keeps the soil very easy to hoe and can be done with very little effort.

For larger areas I use a long handled 3 tined cultivator which is much quicker than a Dutch hoe

Once you're used to it 3-4 square meters can be done in less than a minute

Proof here (Me hoeing with both types of hoe)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31559373@N00/tags/hoeing/