building soil (mulch sheets and swales) over a crusher fine base

The area around my house in northern NM is filled with 6-12 inches of crusher fines. Underneath the crusher fines is compacted clay (which is why I put the crusher fines down, so in wet conditions I wouldn't be a muddy mess). Not much grows there but some native plants are starting to push through. The surrounding land is j/p forest with sage, along with some ponderosa pine and gamble oak along the mostly dry streams and a mostly unused irrigation ditch that goes through my land. I want to build rich soil there using permaculture practices. Should I remove the crusher fines or just leave them and build the soil on top? I do know that the fines are probably a great mineral source, but the crusher fines are the rock dust mixed with pebbles. Thanks very much.

First I would make sure that the area around the foundation drained very well so your home is not compromised by water infiltration. You can do this with a foot wide "buffer zone all the way around the foundation.

For places for garden beds, I'd remove the crusher so that it was no more than 4 inches thick in the areas where you are going to put compost/garden soil for plantings.
Build your soil on top of the left behind crusher and make sure you get a thriving microbiome living it that soil.
From there it is only a matter of planting the things you want to grow in those spaces.

Redhawk

I built my home on a bit of a slope and built up the low end with crusher fines. Now I want to have living soil on the flat area on the down-slope side but am wondering if I need to scrape all the fines away and relocate them, and then add other, more soil-like material (the local clay of northern New Mexico) and start building that; or is it possible to start building soil on top of the crusher fines by first laying down the local clay and mixing with (maybe sand and) organic material like straw, leaves, compost and wood chips? I'm getting fabulous results building soil on the native clay in other areas, but am not sure about on top of the crusher fines. Many thanks.

[Edit: I just realized I posed this same question on this forum 3 years ago and got a great reply from Bryant. I think I was not notified when the reply came so I missed it then. Thanks, Bryant. No need to reply again. You answered my question. In the three years since the previous post I've been working on the other areas I mentioned so no time wasted.  I would have cancelled this post if I saw how to do that, but I don't see a cancel button anywhere. Sorry.]

Yes, thanks. This is the previous post I referred to in my edit.