Eli Mead

I have an area of my property that the local mill had been dumping wood chips on for over a decade. It's mixed with a bit of rock, but aside from that, pure wood chips. Would I be able to grow anything directly in this? It would best be mixed with other soil, right?

Thanks man, I appreciate the input.  I have a similar feeling, if it's only cultivating once to get things started, isn't that a good use of resources, and can't the land deal with it?  As for the best way to cultivate, I've heard some people mention plowing then disking being less hard on the soil, which makes sense to me (less mixing soil with subsoil.)  I think I'll probably do a variety of things to see how it works differently-- plain mulch some, mouldboard plow then disc some, chisel plow some in a checker board fashion and then remove the chunks of turf by hand and probably mould board plwoing on counter multiple times to make some swales.  How will I know what works better unless I try?  If anyone has any other suggestions for methods, I'm all ears. 

P.S.  It's not actually a virgin field, just fallow for decades.  So it's not complete pristeneness I'm tampering with, if that makes anyone feel any better. 

So I've got a beautiful few acres of virgin farmland I'm wanting to work, but for some reason, it's covered in grass instead of mulch and cardboard.  I know that would be the gradual way to get things going, yet part of me wants to give into the temptation of just tilling it and planting heavily with alfalfa and other cover crops.  Does that make sense in this context?  I know it's not recommended as a regular practice, but to get things going, what do you think?