Hello everyone. This is my first post on this forum (which I heard referenced in one of the many Permaculture videos I've been watching). I am not an experienced gardener, and even less experienced with Permaculture principles (reading a lot, though).
I have a couple of questions that I hope you can address... but first a quick background. I have an area in my back yard roughly 3000 sq. ft. I did exactly what everyone recommends NOT doing: allowing bare soil. As you can imagine, this area has been overrun by various types of weeds (only a few remaining patches of Centipede grass remain). The soil is quite poor... very little useful topsoil (mostly eroded), followed by mostly sand, ending in very dense soil (clay?). My intent is to garden in this area after improving the soil quality. I already have various young fruit trees there (probably a foolish decision, even though I amended the soil in and around the planting area).
My intent is to "sheet mulch" the area with cardboard, add compost/mulch, and broadcast Sorghum Sudangrass (I'm in Zone
and intercrop clover (and possibly even annual Ryegrass). I even have Sunn Hemp seeds as an alternate legume.
My original question was...
[1] if the roots of the Sorghum Sudangrass (and other cover crops) can penetrate the layer of 1/4-in cardboard (obviously, at times overlapping to 1/2-in).
After thinking about this, I might as ask if...
[2] there is a better alternative to dealing with weeds prior to broadcasting the cover crop. Is cardboard even required or will the cover crop outgrow the weeds (none are taller than 3 inches and most weeds grow close to the ground... I killed the rest manually).
I apologize for my ignorance, but am anxiously willing to learn.
