Weeding: is it gardening?

It is quite daunting to have the yen to garden and grow things to have to spend days weeding to start.
My garden has been taken over by this plat that while easy enough to remove spreads like wildfire if not attacked regularly.
So with some cool sunny days I decided to get started

Weeds everywhere under the apple.The bricks almost invisible  

Hopefully with some herbs planted it will keep the weeds down.

Before: Looks green but only weeds

After: With Dog.

Weed between all the bricks 

After: but before clearing under the apple tree

Had to pull up the bricks to get at the mat of roots 

Plenty of room for planting now
Still have some areas by the fence but I feel justified in doing the herb planting now