re: NEW Garden Help needed

When I started tilling it this week I asked my wife how big she wanted the garden and her answer was;
"bigger is always better"

Only caution on lawn clippings is the potential for lawn weed seeds unless you compost it before you use it in the garden, but otherwise it’s a great source of organic matter.

All the animal manures are great for a newly prepared garden, you can a little more selective over time.

Since you are located in LaFourche Parish, here’s a link to the county agents office in Raceland. Call or email them and ask if they know of a free source of compost in the parish. Also ask if there are any Master Gardener Seminar series in your area, if so attend the ones on vegetable gardening.
LINK. Ask to speak to the consumer horticulturist in the office.

Surely you have independently owned retail plant nurseries in Thibodaux and
Vacherie. For a quick start to add organic matter to your garden, most plant nurseries sell “garden soil” in bulk - this is 100% finely ground, composed pine tree limbs, etc with some sand added. You can add this to the garden cheaper than peat moss. In Baton Rouge it sells for about $35 per cubic yard. If you added 4 inches of compost over the entire 20 x 40 area (800 sq ft) and tilled it in - that would be 10 cubic yds of organic matter. Most nurseries will deliver that to you for maybe a $50 delivery fee. This is a just a suggestion for a quick infusion of organic matter since you are “hot to trot”. But over the next few years, add as much free animal manure, leaves, clippings, etc. as you can. You can’t add too much.