Thank you, Dave. That is not only helpful...I'm now having a "duh" moment because I've already been doing something similar.
As an absentee landowner, I acquired a small acreage that once was a sheep farm (probably 60 years ago) and is rumored to have been a strawberry farm (there are no living witnesses). The woodlot had been almost entirely stripped of large conifers; alder filled in densely where the forest was cut down. Part of the land remained as low-grade pasture which is gradually filling in with wild rose and thistle (hence my question). There was a small apple orchard, dreadfully neglected, which I'm now learning how to prune. In back of the house there was about 100 sf raised garden beds fenced in and overgrown to jungle stage.
I moved to the land full time six years ago without ambition to be a farmer or gardener...simply wanting a quiet life in a kind of private park if you will. There was no gardening whatsoever in my family culture but it seemed such a waste to have all this room for a garden and not use it.
Managing the whole acreage felt overwhelming so four years ago I fenced a back yard 100 x 100 ft to keep out the deer. I'm not physically strong enough to till and turn soil with a shovel but someone had told me about "lasagna gardening." So, one area at a time, I started using cardboard and a thick layer of oat straw as sheet mulch to kill grass so it could be converted to grow veggies. Where I wanted pathways I laid down overlapping burlap coffee bags and covered them with wood chips. Do burlap bags equal jute mesh?
The two year period you mention jibes with my experience in the "stage one" conversion of lawn to soil. However, with the method I was taught, the cardboard disintegrates because the straw traps moisture. I was told that it was desirable for the cardboard to disappear -- eaten by worms that are attracted to the glue in the cardboard. After about two years there was no trace of cardboard OR lawn under the straw but it was alive with worms. I began amending with compost and planting food crops. I've heard that decent garden soil can be built in about four years with the right combination of compost, green mulch, crop rotation and resting.
Once I got my first area under active cultivation, I expanded with cardboard and straw to adjacent plots and let that start working with the ultimate aim of replacing all the grass with veggie garden and flowers & shrubs for bees, birds, butterflies. I have only been growing veggies for two seasons and now "suddenly" (to me) the word permaculture popped up on a gardening website I was reading. It is a totally new concept and forest gardening is even more exciting. Wow -- major eye openers. After reading some of the other posts here at Permies I'm beginning to realize that so much more can be done compared to my original vision.
Thank you for giving consideration to my question -- I was about to delete the question as too trivial when I saw that you'd replied.
