I found this one as well. Thought I remembered it from somewhere
https://www.allotment-garden.org/garden-diary/6132/no-dig-gardening-vs-digging/Now my take on all your other questions, which I didn’t have time to really think through yesterday.
I do both dig, no dig and green manures on the plot and do no dig raised beds at home. If you are starting with a blank canvas, I would encourage you to experiment a bit and see what works for you. There are people who are set on one way being better than the other, but in my view they both have up sides and down sides, which is why I do both. It is allowed
I find getting enough material to effectively mulch no dig areas is not so easy and I compost with a passion. I also found last winter for some reason, all my mulches disappeared into the soil. My soil always has a lot of worms in it, but there were a lot more than usual when I investigated this spring. I’m blaming a mild wet winter and them for the mulch going and am making even more than usual this year to compensate, but it is a pain.
You can grow through weed membrane and it might be a good idea to tame bits of the plot. I have done this in the past. If you just cover areas, I wouldn’t dig first as the soil will compact back down and you will have to do it again. Do check your weeds though. If you have couch grass, bindweed, marestail or the like, they happily survive under weed membrane and will pop back up when you uncover them.
I know you have said you don’t want to use weed killer, but I would think about doing a one-off spray. You can clear anything by hand given enough will power, donkey work and sweat, but it is not easy. Don’t believe stories of covering pernicious weeds with cardboard and mulch and everything is fine. It is a very different thing to convert a plot with well cultivated soil into no dig and a bit of weedy land which has not been really looked after. Been there, done that, got the blisters to prove it.
I think your beds may be too big. The idea is not to walk on the soil, so you need then to be thin enough that you can lean in from both sides and do any work you need to do.
You can put grass and soil into a compost heap, but far better is to make a turf stack and cover it. I did that with masses of couch grass infested clumps of soil and got a lovely pile of topsoil after a year.
Overwhelmed and excited is where we all started, so ask loads of questions, do a bit at a time and make sure you don’t make it a chore, but something you enjoy. Plot time is perfect for healing a troubled mind, contemplating the good things in life and growing anything and then putting it on your plate will give you so much satisfaction
