Managing a new area with woodchips, but without trees

I have managed to accrue circa 10.5m cu of woodchips. Much I have left to rot for six months, some are new, but I now want to use them to start moving from grass and weeds to bushes, trees and food. I also have some woody debris (basically anything too small to split to firewood) and cuttings.

I am figuring to sheet mulch some grass areas, with 6" of woodchip atop cardboard and 3" where bare soil. This way, I think I can cover about a 1/3 of the space I eventually want to transition to food forest with what I have.

HOWEVER: I do not have the money nor the time to be planting trees yet, and it just so happens to be the end of bare root season here anyway. Planting potted trees would be considerably pricier than bare-root.

I also realise that this plan will result in areas of woodchip, butted up against areas of, well, not woodchip; grass, an old path or some other such space, that I am sure would be an issue if left.

My thinking here is that if I layout sheet mulch now, the soil will be in excellent (if not just 'better') shape come autumn/winter for planting. In the interim, though, how best should I manage the space? Indeed just piling up woodchips everywhere with nothing planted in will mean weed seeds landing in the medium for six months and causing issue later? But then, there is no cover crop I can grow into woodchips immediately that will be suitable...is there?

I'm questioning the best way of utilising this pile of woodchip vs area of grasses, considering the time of year and alike.

Hopefully, this is clear - I guess its a planning question as much as anything. Thanks for any insights anyone can offer.

We did something similar about a year ago. We contacted a tree company and asked if they'd be willing to dump some of their woodchips on our land. Boy Howdy, did they!!! We got about 3 huge dump trucks delivered in about 2 days. We had so many wood chips, we didn't know what to do! And the inside of the piles were getting scary hot! So we started raking them out in places where we knew we'd eventually want trees. The chips were varying depths--some areas only a few inches deep, others are 6 inches or so.

It's been almost a year, and the woodchips are still nicely covering the thicker areas. Places where we didn't lay them down as thick are starting to show native plants poke back through. We didn't lay cardboard over the soil; we just put the chips on the bare lawn.

The soil beneath is looking more beautiful and soft. We've planted a few trees in the chipped areas.

All that to say, try it and see! Even if you don't like it, rake the chips back up and use them elsewhere. You'll find that even keeping them temporarily in one place improves the soil beneath.

Thanks Stacie.
Ok, maybe I can get away with it for a year then...

I think you are right on with the idea of waiting to plant. The trees will thank you for it! I know I wish I had first wood chipped and left them to do their work in the spots I put trees.
If the chips are thick enough, you probably won't have too much by way of weeds. One thing that possibly could work as a "cover crop" of sorts is pumpkins or other squash of the crazy vining sort. I have had great success planting them in the crummiest of soil surrounded by woodchips and watching them totally cover the ground, thus out competing any weeds. They even beat out Japanese knotweed and bindweed! They also helped shade the soil and retain water. I just dug out little planting holes in the woodchips and put the seeds there. Some I added a couple of handfuls of compost first, others I left unamended. Both grew great.

A year ago I spread wood chips over an area and intentionally scattered cover crop seeds and lightly raked them into the wood chips.  Watered them daily to keep them moist, sprayed MiracleGro fertilizer on them, they had plenty of sunlight, and even though they sprouted nothing really grew..  I later learned the seeds need to get to dirt when the sprout or they wont grow.  Also, even the weeds stayed away.  I think I pulled less than a dozen weeds out of the area all year.
I think you will be OK if you put down a 3 or 4 inch layer of wood chips.  When you want to get seeds to grow either top dress with a couple inches of dirt or compost and rake it in, or rake back the wood chips until your seeds sprout and gradually scatter chips around your plants as they grow.