I am definitely sold on the benefits of sheet composting. In various areas, we layered cardboard and/or office waste paper, poop from the neighbor donkey and horse, purchased compost, hay and purchased topsoil. The sheet composted areas are sprouting more mushrooms (which I am assuming is a good thing, indicating both rot and moisture) than a nearby bed where we used the same ingredients but mixed them together. The less the layers are disturbed, the happier the worms and all the other critters. No need to bug the bugs.
We are seeing lots of toads, snakes and earthworms, all positives.
Some of our plants appear to be a bit yellow, so we think we are missing some nutrients but isn't it unlikely to be nitrogen, with all that poop? We have used some general fertilizers plus iron, which seems to be helping.
The hugelcultur area also seems to be doing well. Down there, we planted beans and squash, and started the orchard with two plums, two paw-paw and one fig. The hugel is several feet deep and is holding moisture incredibly well.
Less successful, perhaps, was the cover cropping. It is indeed adding lots of organic material, but organic material AKA weeds. It was an annual cover crop, so as long as none of it reseeds, winter should take care of the problem. But in the meantime, I have pulled a lot of weeds. I am pulling and leaving in place, so some of them keep growing, and I pull them again later. The only good news is that they are easy to pull in our soft, full-of-organic soil. My conclusion as of now is that I will use cover cropping only in areas being prepared for planting in future years.
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