Sheet mulching

... can it TRULY be as simple as

1. throw down sheets of cardboard
2. spread a thicc-ass layer of woodchips over it
3. plant stuff in the woodchips???

Because... I think I could actually fucking DO some rudimentary gardening if that was all I absolutely NEEDED to do to prep the ground.

I have a notorious case of what the gardening community would describe as "gray thumb". The only plants that thrive within my domain are the invasive unpleasant ones that make you sick. If I can externalize and cut myself out of the process as much as possible, maybe then something I actually want to grow will actually grow...

We get so much wind at my place, I can't do this. I tried even staking the cardboard down and it required a ton of stakes and still failed as soon as the cardboard got wet, littering the neighbors' places with soggy cardboard. I did have success using it as a weed barrier just around the base of my tomatoes, but this also required several stakes just to keep the two boxes in place. My stakes here are a U of metal with a ~5cm plastic ring at the top to give it surface area to push on whatever I'm staking.

I tried this and I guess the cardboard wasn’t thick enough. It just deteriorated after it rained and I was left with a mess of cardboard bits, weeds, and wood mulch.

This is how i live my life, however, I either have enough cardboard or enough chips, never both. So I either have loose sheets of cardboard laid out around or I have piles of chips hanging around.

I usually do double layers of cardboard with either green cuttings underneath or with compost/ fertilizer. Its also a great way to manage paths and aisles. Just keep adding more cardboard and mulch. Also, newspaper can stand in for cardboard. Its mostly soy inks so not much to worry about.

If you aren't adding a massive amount of carbon to your soils, your soils are probably starving for it. Just think about how much leaf and wood rubbish comes into forested systems.

I had some neighbors do this but then the storm drain was clogged with leaves and it flooded into their front yard, and the wood chips floated away into other people’s yards.

I think it works better in rainy places where you don’t have 5-7 months without rain. The fungi need time to digest the wood.

I tried what I could get my hands on (mulch is really not a popular thing here in Japan for whatever reason) including wood chips, but if wind gets under any of it, it's over. The mulch blows as well.