There used to be a lawn here many years ago and it looks like catsear has taken over the majority of the topsoil. Can't use Roundup because of a few fruit bearing trees around the exterior but I'm assuming hand pulling is my only option? There's more catsear to the top and right, just didn't capture it in the photo...
Roundup sprayed on the weeds won't hurt the fruit trees as long as you're careful not to spray the trees. Roundup is absorbed by leaves--once it goes into the soil it's not active as an herbicide anymore so as long as you aren't spraying it on the leaves of the trees they would be fine. If you're trying to garden organically then you'd still want to avoid it, but if you were just avoiding it because you were afraid it would kill your fruit trees then I wouldn't worry about it. Make sure you're using regular Roundup though, not the new Extended Control version. But that looks like a large enough area that it might be a pain to go around and spray all the weeds, so if it were my yard I would probably mow it down, then lay down layers of cardboard or newspaper to kill the weeds.
Another option is to use a selective lawn weed-killer if there is any grass there you want to keep.
If I wanted the entire area cleared I would do what ecrane suggested. I'd Roundup the enitre thing. Doesn't take long.
Another thing is, if you use Roundup the weeds will seed back in no time. It may take several sprayings, probably some next year also unless you mulch it heavily.
I simply could not have an attractive landscape without RU.
I ended up hand pulling them, every single one I could find, easily over 1,000 of them. I actually ended up getting early symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrone because of the hand digger I was using to get the large taproots out. If some company had a service to either flamethrower the yard or douse it with boiling water, I would have gone that route.
