Pull weeds, mow, and/or solarize with black plastic to sterilize soil.

Certainly any mulch will help...but mulch will also impede germination of annuals.

Thanks. To solarize do I place plastic down in fall and remove early spring??

Well the point is to get the ground hot for a fairly long period of time (which *may* be bad for microflora of soil, I don't know)..but appropriately, you should do this in the right season...I'd do it now.
Consequently, you would need to mow everything down first and water well before putting down the plastic. If it gets hot enough, it'll cook your weed seeds.

If you want to do this, I'd advise you post and ask other people's opinions. I have never done it..but I read about it in school and the theory is sound (the practice..I dunno).

If nothing else, it might be a good gardening experiment, if you're up for it.

Thanks. I'll look into it.

I would suggest using cardboard with mulch on top. Put it down now and it will smother/kill everything until it degrades next summer.