I'm a beginning gardener and have been reading up on permaculture, but am new to it as well. I just moved into a new (old) home in Portland, OR, which has very dense clay soil and a weed-choked lawn. The previous owner poisoned all the weeds, but they just sprang right back up. We're converting much of the lawn to garden space by sheet mulching this fall, however we have young kids and want to give them a space to run around and play with the dogs.
Do you have any advice for how to tackle a project like this, and what to replace the grass with? We like the idea of meadow grass, but aren't sure if we need to deal with the existing weeds first (dandelion and hawkweed mostly, which seems to be a losing battle no matter how much time I've spent killing my back to pull them all by hand).
If anyone has any advice or books / videos on where to get started, it would be greatly appreciated!
