Dutch white clover as inoculated wood chips pathway cover crop.

Since a year or so i've been spreading seeds of my dutch white clover in my beds. I found it locally in my garden and sowed it into my beds. I like local seeds, because i believe they're the most adapted ones to my soil/climate complex.
They have done their job, covered most of the beds in a certain area. The walking path consist of straw and or woodchips dumped on them. I've inoculated the pathways with compost worms, and now i'm moving the white dutch clover into the pathways. I hope to grow it there on top of the woodchips, i've noticed that in some places where the woodchips got covered by plants the woodchips stayed moist for longer and were composted faster, teaming with young worms. My hope is that the clover can take my walking on it and that it will keep all the wood chips moist and in a permanent state of being optimally attacked by devouring hungry mycelium.
I've inoculated the pathways with red wine cap mushrooms last summer and had my first flushes.

I realize this is a rather crazy experiment all in all, that's why i like to share it with my crazy fellow permies.
It's quite some work because it keeps on creeping back into the beds and taking it out with the horihori is quite time consuming.
I just toss it on the pathways and then plant them in it. They take a while to adapt to their new place, but usually start growing after a while.
This years woodchips i hope to make of alders growing down at the rivers and will dump it just on top of them. I'm pretty confident most will grow up through it and cover the surface. And if some die, they leave a lot of nitrogen fixing bacteria into the soil.
I don't do thick layers, 2 inch (5cm)max since i've read it is interfering with the soils air uptake.

I have hope that all this maximizes the building up of soils in quite a passive way and feeds the plants in the beds in a passive way.

Four pictures.

First one, quite the greenness, mostly miners lettuce and lambs lettuce, spring onion and brown pathways with clover
Second, lots of clover in the beds still, winter lettuce and the movement is once the lettuces start touching the clover, i take the clover out and transplant into the pathways.
Third pic, new beds, they're in the shade a lot during summer, the pathway is full of water, waiting for a big load of woodchips acting as a sponge throughout summer, i hope to keep salads from bolting here. On the sides clover has been transplanted in already.
Fourth picture Long pathway with clover transplanted in it. Left is a row of sage and the first bed on the right is andives et co.

I like it.  The white clover dose gradually spread and colonies new areas by rhizomes along the surface. Perhaps you could cut along the edge of your beds with a sharp spade then apply the fresh wood chips there making it less desirable for roots to pass through.  Having a sifting frame to set over the bed would allow you to sift the compost from the path and then put the large chips and clover back in the path with fresh chips.  As you have found the white clover is quite resilient and if it has some die from trampling or transplanting it is not a loss but gain for the soil.

Dutch (white) clover is my favourite. Creeps through lawn and makes it stronger. Colonizes weed fields and transforms them. Thrives in garbage sandy soil. Feeds my bees even when mowed regularly -- it adapts, blooming low. Sometimes requires stern measures to control. Magnificent stuff.

This is really great. I designed my zone 1 vegetable garden the same way but it hasn't exactly come to fruition yet. What I did was dig the entire space down about 18 inches and then mound up the soil into beds and the idea was to fill it all the way up between the beds with chips. I never got it done last year so the chips were only about half as high as they needed to be. Everything grew noticeably worse once the "chip sponge" finally dried out in mid-summer.

Very inspirational, thanks!

Yeah, that would help keep the path debris from sticking to one's feet when one wanders along the paths on frosty days.

Very interesting story Hugo!
Thank you! Anna.

Bit by bit i am moving the clover out of the beds, i make mini herb hedges on the north side of the beds consisting of thyme, oregano or winter savory.
It will keep it clear for me and visitors where to walk and where to plant. But since it's winter, not many people come and visit my garden, so i don't mind the messy look too much.

If I remember correctly, legume inoculants are a product of Dutch clover. When I find one growing exceptionally well in a waste-place such as the edge of a parking lot I suppose I could cultivate the inoculant from the roots via the Korean Natural Farming method of brewing it with carbohydrates from a baked potato.

I have considered purposefully digging in wood chips to create a nitrogen starved soil, then sowing clover.
Since I saw you post, I did the next best thing in a space I hope to return to "lawn", by digging autumn leaves into the surface.
We shall see if the clover takes, but it should have the advantage over plants that cant fix their own nitrogen.

Interesting experiment William. I was thinking along the same lines earlier, however. I've taken the wood chip on-top-of-soil way because i've heard that the soil only loses nitrogen at the beginning of the decomposing process right where the bottom woodchips meet the soil. After the initial process the woodchips start releasing nitrogen and worms living in the composted wood chip layer bring their gut bacteria into this active layer while aerating and mixing the soil and fluffy layer.
My conclusion is that i am enriching the top layer of my soil by enabling worms to work in the woodchips. Ideally i would have this rich layer mix in deeper in the soil so even in the heat and dry of summer i could have these extra nutrients being taken up by the roots of plants i am growing in the beds. But it's not possible without digging everything over releasing massive amounts of dormant seeds onto the surface. Which i could after germinating cover again with woodchips. But i don't have that many...
That would really speed things up, bringing in carbon in a deeper level acting as a sponge. Where i live summers are getting worryingly dry. I have more to eat from my garden now at the start of winter than i do in summer. Even with the least amount of sun. Anyway, back to what i wanted to say.
This lack of sponges in the soil has been caused by the introduction of the tractor, which keeps hedges really low. There used to be more shade, millions of miles of hedges had to be cut by hand by the poor and needy. They could not keep up at all. Trees were everywhere. Hedges were filled with high trees. Many of them were fruit trees. In a good year they couldn't pick it all, most went to feed the wildlife, which was abundant. Chickens everywhere. Nowadays hunters have to feed hogs in the forests which they buy at hogfarms, they're fighting over whose hog it is, "but i shot it, what was it doing in my forest anyway! You've cut down all the oak trees!". Back to what i wanted to say.
There used to be a lot more woody debris around, feeding the soils of the lands, people couldn't keep it down. The land was much more fertile. And summers less hot. It's a shame that people in these times of renewed interest in growing food are being confronted with soils which are depleted. I am proud to be part of the people trying to figure out with the little we have but ourselves, knowledge and brains to work towards a renewed green happy future.    
I am sorry for this philosophical essay, that tends to happen when i answer when i've just woken up.
I agree with you that the white clover should have the advantage over other plants that cant fix their own nitrogen. They're growthpatterns have led me to conclude, they're rarely hindered by plants outshading them and with their ground covering properties they keep the soil moist and attract dew, so they can spread easily putting roots down. I am confident it will keep the woodchip layer somewhat cooler and moist, advancing mycelium growth, which in turn attract bacterial growth which in turn attract worms and aeration activity.

Some update photos

Another

Because snow frequently freezes and thaws over Winter in my location in Ohio, I'm interested in using cover crops to hold the soil in place over Winter. Clover looks like a promising cover crop that I might try out in future years. This year I'm currently experimenting with common vetch (Vicia sativa) and Siberian kale. I seeded two beds originally, but the rabbits completely devoured sprouts in the bed that had no fence around it. Hopefully, annual clover will be far less palatable to wild rabbits than vetch, otherwise I might have to trap some of the rabbits and eat them in a stew.

I've had luck strting new patches of clover by coving them with clear plastic totes
Not only does it give a greenhouse effect,it also protects the seeds and young ants from predators.
Of course, I'm dealing with birds and mice not rabbits-the dog runs off the rabbits.

The redwinecaps keep popping up. We’ve had an extremely wet cold summer this year. The clover went nuts and took over all the beds. Growing over thyme hedges and killing them.
I’ve used loads of clover as mulch. I’ve kept it down by bushcutting it. A rogue cow herd briefly past a few weeks ago eating it short.
I just started dumping straw on top of it. Which kills off the weaker ones.
Bees loved it!
Worms adore it! They have become so abundant in the garden the chickens keep escaping and laying giant eggs.
Things go really well. If i need a bed for growing i just rip out handfulls of creeping clover one week come back the next and dig up the harder cores which try to regrow then seed or plant the seedlings i have grown in the greenhouse. I have to keep an eye on them when the seedlings are small.
So it’s work. But so is running after woodchips or hay or straw to feed soils.
All in all i’d say it’s succesful so far and could be really advantageous in a hot dry summer.