This thread is here to demonstrate and explain the theory behind sheet muching, a no till organic and super fertile way to prepare a veggie bed and prevent weeds from sprouting in this bed. If done properly, the soil underneath will quickly be alive with microorganisms, soon to result in mushrooms working for you to connect and bring life to your bed! If you wish, and if you have some knowledge and experience with growing mushrooms, you could even include a layer of inoculated grain into your sheet mulching (i would recommend a somewhat native species,or at least a species you know will thrive)!

In theory, tilling destroys the layers of soil created by nature, kills microorganisms, is unsustainable, and can quickly become quite labor intensive.

There are many ways to sheet mulch, the simplest being trimming the plant matter you wish to start a veggie bed on and laying down 2-3ish layers of recycled carboard/newspaper/ anything similiar, then throwing a thick layer of organic matter (generally the woodier the better, however diversity is important) to weigh down this cardboard and to prevent sunlight and oxygen from hitting the cardboard, which would prevent microorganism growth.

With that being said, if you want a healthy and robust microclimate and environment for your soil to thrive with life, then this way of sheet mulching is the way to go! Its not really much more complicated than the above procedure, just an extra layer or two is added!

First, trim the plants that are growing where you wish to sheet mulch nearly as much as possible. You could throw the trimmings back so the organic matter stays there.
Second, throw a layer of fresh/composted chicken/animal poo down, with some compost or rock dust or lime or whatever your specific soil may require to thrive (pH wise). The poo and compost is pretty important. Also, the rock dust will slowly remineralize the soil, especially with the mycelium that is soon to come (even if you dont plan on including inoculated grain in your mulching, wild spores will most likely germinate eventually and thrive!) since most (or some may be a more accurate term to use) mycelium can dissolve minerals, thereby making it more available to plants. All of the poo/compost/amendments should be spread as evenly as possible. You could also include excess organic matter and leaves (legume tree/shrub leaves contain loads of natural nitrates, such as ammonium nitrate).
Next, you could include the inoculated grain, and dump it all over, or mix it in with the poo layer. The inoculated grain is definatly not required.
Then comes the sheets. This, again, could be 2-3ish layers of recycled cardboard (just not the cardboard with plastic in/on it), newspaper (veggie based inks would be ideal), or whatever else you think would do the job and is fairly quickly biodegradable. Also paper grocery bags could be used. Just make sure its thick enough to do the job, and theres no cracks/holes that would allow the plants underneath that you are attempting to cover to come back up.
You could then put another layer of organic matter/ leaves.
After this layer comes the woody mulch. I would recommend very shredded woody mulch directly above the paper or leaves, then a layer of less shredded mulch that is thick on top of the very shredded mulch.

About 2 weeks or so after a good rain, the sheets should be more than degraded enough to start planting, as roots can generally do a much better job at penetrating the sheets than grass blades or whatever. Also, maybe in a month or less after installation and a good rain, there could definatly be mushrooms popping up all throughout the mulching!

The theory behind sheet mulching could be applied to a variety of situations, from planting lil baby trees in a place overgrown with a cover crop, to food forests (although chicken tractoring would be more efficient/easy for large areas), to many other situations.
Also, planting a native, running, and vigourosly growing nitrogen fixing/legume cover crop could definatly help to keep unwanted plants/weeds at bay, while simultaneously and continuosly increasing the fertility of your mulched area!

Hope this helps and inspires
I will be attaching a pic and a few links about sheet mulching.

Enjoy the abundance of nature !

Geoff lawton, bill mollison, and david holmgren are all great permaculture teachers that know there stuff and have quite a bit of info on the web, including many great youtube videos! However, id say the best teacher would be mother nature

Sheet mulching 1
Sheet mulching Oregon state pdf
Permaculture News sheet mulching

My favorite method was getting a roll of Wheat straw once a year.

1200lbs of straw in a round bale for $25.
One bale would mulch my 50ft by 100ft garden very heavily. Within 4 years or so the soil was so loose and full of worms, you could drive your hand down to the elbow.

Grew some great stuff, no real weeds to speak of.

Well that definatly sounds more simple.

However a little diversity in the soil never hurt

I just dump piles of seaweed overtop of my weeds all around my plants. I live by the ocean though so wild seaweed rotting on the shore is abundant. I collect bags of it.

I make my own compost, and I add seaweed to the compost as well as woodchips(I get these from parks that don't seem to be growing anything in the woodchips). Woodchips are important. Then I lay down a layer of compost over the whole garden, around the plants and over the weeds and I compress it down by walking all over it in bare feet. Then I start laying down the seaweed..and if/when I have more compost I lay down another layer of compost and then seaweed again.

This will eventually give you better soil than you can imagine..and the weeds can still eventually come through and do if you don't do this again mid growing season and they are great to eat. Most of those weeds are medicine.

I don't bother with tilling any longer, or going out to weed my garden. I have a pretty large garden and it's productive this way.

True, many weeds are medicinal or nutritious.
And even a few weeds do get through that arent edible, the bed just grew its own mulch

Do you throw the seaweed on while its salty?

Lol i guess that could be a bit vague.

What i mean is do you possibly wash most of the salt off? Or do you not experience any nwgative effects from the salt?
I would initially think salt would be bad to concentrate in one place on soil

sure, we added whatever else was around.
including green manures, etc. The key to good growing is to use whatever cheap bulk materials that are local.

From experience I'd refrain from newsprint and cardboard.

It depends on what you are growing or intend to grow and the hydrology of the site where you intend to use it. Soils with a naturally high or seasonally high water table can be high in salt so you need to evaluate the soil you intend to use it on.

Some plants are very salt tolerant and elevated salt levels can improve the flavour of the fruit. Some plants don't really tolerate salt very well and could suffer under some circumstances.

Seaweed is often teaming with bacteria and some of the bacteria are beneficial to soil culture. Azotobacter can fix nitrogen and some Azotobacters can also switch on genes that give the ability to tolerate salt.

Some Azotobacters can colonise plants roots and form a symbiosis that makes the roots more efficient enabling them uptake more nutrients. Everything has limits though so it needs to be managed either by careful observation or soil tests.

Sea salt is slightly different to table salt as it contains almost the entire periodic table of trace elements which does help to give the some protection from the high sodium levels it can create.

In most cases for vegetable gardens you can just throw the seaweed straight on without washing it first with no problems.

No I don't wash it. I just take the dry or rotting seaweed off the beach in garbage bags and dump it right into the garden and compost bin. Some people actually put ocean water in they're gardens with great results. Another thing you might want to consider adding is paramagnetic rock dust..from a volcanic source is good if possible.

Good point jamie.

Volcanic rock dust can really improve the mineral content in soils, so i hear

Could you elaborate on why you would refrain from this?

I can. BPA.

Hmm well im sure that does apply to some things, however i dont see an issue with straight cardboard, or reused paper grocery bags with veggie ink. Ive heard veggie ink is starting to become pretty prevalent

Also, cardboard is great for mycelial growth, as the little tunnels in the cardboard act like mycelium highways

shredded paper is fine in the compost pile.
Aside form what Jamie mentions, straight paper mats and doesn't breathe. Layered on soil it'll stagnate the soil in some ways. Big difference between mold and mycelium.

Hmm.. It does seem as if the soil wouldnt breathe as well.

With that being said, it will generally be degraded to nearly-soil in at most 2 months.

Also, not that this is the best representation of critical thinking, but the permaculture research institute of australia teaches sheet mulching and utilizes sheet mulching, thereby being more than enough evidence, imho, that it works, and works well.

Also i did this to my garden bed and didnt put any mycelium spawn near it, and there are mushies popping up everywhere 2 months down the road! There was also a few mushies maybe 2-3 weeks after finishing the sheet mulching.

There is also not a single weed that has popped up, and like i said, its been at least 2 months since the sheet mulching was installed.