Sounds to me like you're planning a permaculture food forest, or at least using the techniques. Are you familiar with permaculture? You'll find lots of helpful info online.
Was your lawn running type grass that'll keep coming back? If so, I'd use the cardboard. If not, I'd go straight to the other stuff. Btw, I've laid card/mulch directly on top of turf: lots less work and lots of lovely nitrogen right there!
Cover-crop seeds will generally not manage in really chunky stuff like straw, bark, leaves etc, but out the front I'd recommend mixing mustard, legumes (lupins and favas are my favs) and maybe cereals. Make sure you can kill it before you plant it, as some things like winter rye may be pretty hard to get rid of in warmer climates.
Over here, buckwheat's a summer plant.
You mention woodchips. I assume you mean freshly chipped trees? It's great stuff and often free in your part of the world!
My priority would be to have a clear design/plan: where will you walk, planting distances etc. Fun for those long winter's nights...
A final warning: there's some very nasty, persistent herbicides out there. Manure, grass straw/hay are sometimes contaminated: Goggle 'Clopyralid' if you feel like a fright! These things are quite uncommon round here and may not be an issue for you, but it's good to be aware of them.

"bare dirt" is not a description of soil that is useful. What is needed is do you have clay, sandy clay, clayey sand, sand, silt as well as how much organic matter you have in the soil now. What is your soils pH? what are the nutrient levels in your soil?
Once you know that then you need to consider what the soil requirements of the plants you want to grow are and how to adjust your soil so it meets those plants needs. Are the plants you want to grow understory plants that may need shade or plants that need full sun?

I'm also in the Seattle area, so can offer some answers to your questions. You have a great assortment of plant material for our climate!

Your... horse manure, straw/hay/tons and tons of leaves (and paper/cardboard if needed) will make good soil come spring and the cardboard underlayer will make sure none of the grass roots survive.

but... since you already have the hardy plants & our weather is still quite mild with the rainy season here to water for you... you might want to go ahead & plant now as you said:

"just add the manure/hay/leaves right on top of the dirt and till it all into the top 8 inches to help 'dilute' the new compost"

If the manure is mostly composted it should be fine as the bottom layer, but if it's not you could skip the manure altogether & just use some purchased compost. Most of your native plants don't need a rich soil. Can also plant lasagna style skip tilling it & just plant right in your layers as long as you're not using any fresh manures.

Ask the person giving the manure if they feed weed free hay. If they do then you don't get it. The herbicide residue is the danger. I've had great results with horse manure from this area though avoided it for years due to rumors of weeds. As long as you keep it on the bottom & don't let any hay get to the top what few things sprout usually pull up easily.

you said: "and don't worry as much about the weeds?"

After you plant you can still mulch between the plants with overlapping layers of newspaper topped with the shredded leaves you acquire. As long as you don't touch the stems of the plants. Do regular patrols to keep up with the sprouting weeds as well as slugs & you'll be pleased with results. Our soil is still warm & the plants will establish themselves by spring.

OR if you just want to do the layers & plant in spring just group your pots together ideally bury the bottoms of the pots in soil or leaf mold to protect roots from freezing... & bait for slugs as they'll eat all winter long.

I wish you the best in your gardening adventure this fall.

Personally, I would keep the plants in pots for now. Your yard will be having a lot going on, and the plants will just get in the way.

Soil type: Got a clean quart jar with straight sides and a lid? Stick a vertical strip of tape that you can write on down the side. Add 2 cups of soil (pick out stones, roots and debris), then almost fill with water. Shake vigorously for a good minute. Then set in a place where it won't be disturbed for two or three days. After one minute, the sand & tiny stone should be settled. Mark the top of that level. After an hour or so, the silt should be settled; mark that. After 2 days, most of the clay should be settled; mark it. Very fine clay will stay suspended in the water, making it cloudy, no problem. Anything that floats is organic, not important for this test. Now look at your marks:
____

clay
____

silt
____

sand
____

What kind of breakdown do you have there? Mostly sand? Mostly clay? Here in W. WA we can have either extreme.

Our high rainfall washes out a lot of nutrients, worse if you have sandy soil. Clay retains more nutrients, but doesn't drain as well. A mix of the two is best.

See the King Conservation District at http://www.kingcd.org/pro_far_soi.htm for their free soil tests. Click on the 'Soil sampling instructions' for the proper way to collect your sample. Don't use a rusty shovel or trowel or bucket. Don't handle the soil with your hands, pick out debris with a clean fork or spoon. Write ORGANIC on the info label. You might also add "growing native plants" on your soil sample label. They can't read minds, I've heard, and will assume you want to grow vegetables, which requires different treatment. They will probably offer a phone number for questions, so feel free to use it. This program is paid for by your tax dollars.

The King County Cooperative Extension Service/Master Gardener program has over 2000 brochures on different subjects http://county.wsu.edu/king/gardening/Pages/default.aspx

One thing that our soil is always lacking is calcium. Since you don't care to raise the pH, you will use gypsum. Your soil test will tell you what your pH is, probably in the 5.0-5.8 area. The soil test people will ASSUME you want to grow vegetables, and will urge you to add dolomite lime or calcitic lime to raise the pH to 6.0-6.7 or so. Unless you're growing vegetables or plants that need this pH level, stick with the gypsum.

Note: many/most people think adding lime always raises the pH, but it doesn't. In fact, you would be better off if you just forgot any connection between lime and pH. Think of lime as CALCIUM, just use the correct kind for your needs. If your soil nutrients are balanced correctly, the pH will fall into place.

If you haven't investigated Seattle Tilth, you will probably want to. Link below.

Sue

Here is a link that might be useful: Seattle Tilth

OK. In your post about cover crops I mentioned that generally native plants don't need a lot of soil improvement, being already adapted to local soils as is. I think since your soil had a lawn growing more or less successfully on it, you don't need to worry much about improving the soil. If you were in new construction that would be a different matter but you're not.

In our rainforests, as in most rainforests, there is very little organic matter or nutrient content in the soil itself. Too much rain, everything gets washed out. The nutrients tend to be contained in plant biomass, either living or relatively recently dead and fallen to the ground. If you were to dig a soil profile in the Quinault rainforest there'd be an organic layer of leaf and twig debris on top of the soil along with fallen logs and branches; then there'd be a very very thin A horizon which is where most soil microbial activity takes place; then there'd be a heavily leached B horizon (the lower part of what's called topsoil) and below that there might be subsoil or there might be just rock, or a glacial hardpan. I'm surprised at how thin the soil is that these trees are growing on! Roadcuts and landslides in the Olympics show big doug firs growing in just a few inches of soil on top of bedrock. Typically for rainforests, both temperate and tropical, most nutrient recycling take place in the organic litter on top of the soil and the top few inches of soil. Some plant roots reach deeper of course but mainly for water and balance, there's not much microbial activity down there. That's one reason you see so many plants growing on top of rotting logs and stumps - it's where the nutrients are.

So, what to do with your garden. You could plant now, without adding anything to the planting holes, and mulch around the plants - that would mimic their native environment. In our area you can plant hardy plants any time the soil is neither frozen nor waterlogged. If this will be your first winter in this garden, you might want to see how it performs over the winter, flooding and drainage wise, before finalizing your planting plan. Or, to be sure you've gotten the lawn grasses out, you could go with the cardboard covered with manure and tree chips route, then plant in spring. Typical ryegrass lawns are not that persistent, but if you had bentgrass or quackgrass, you need to be sure it's gone before planting.

Adding organic mulches should take care of any nutrient needs. Yes our soils are typically low in calcium, but that's what the native plants are used to. Don't worry about it, or the pH. Leaf mold from deciduous trees would add calcium too, it's the coniferous stuff that makes our soil acid and calcium deficient. But what does 'deficient' mean if you're growing plants that are adapted to that state?? Calcium content is mainly an issue when growing (non native) plants from areas where the soil provides more calcium than ours does.

What, no salal?

Thanks for the responses!

Belgianpup: I took 3 samples for the 'dirt' and they're all pretty much the same. Looks like a lot of sand at the bottom, and a tiny layer of list on top. Here are pictures of the three samples:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/68789281@N08/6250951684/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68789281@N08/6250423555/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68789281@N08/6250423671/

Here's a picture of the yard so far:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68789281@N08/6250951570/

The big river rock pile on the left is everything I pulled out of the yard as I dug it up. There's a huge maple tree on the right, in the parking strip, that feeds my compost bins.

I still need to do the soil testing, but it's difficult right now as I lost my glasses and the printing on the instructions might as well be microscopic. I get some new glasses this week and I'll be able to read it and take the samples.

reg_pnw7: This is good to hear. So it sounds like all the compost I'm making will just be bonus... icing on the cake so to speak. I love the Olympics btw... I camp in the Quinault valley quite a bit and spend hours just looking at the plants and hunting for things I've never seen before. I found some Indian Pipe once... that was really cool, as I'd been looking for it for a few years (accept that I found it on the Easter side of the mountains, not on the rainforest side).

I got a ton of burlap sacks yesterday from some local coffee roasters. So I was thinking of putting those down first, then some cardboard on top of it, then the fresher manure/compost and the mulch on top. I'll keep the new plants in the containers like you mentioned and just dig them into the ground. Then come sprint I can take them out of the pots and mix a little of the compost that was over-wintered on top into the hole.

The problem I see though is that if the plant's roots are below the burlap after I plant them in the spring (i'll have to cut a hole in the burlap), and the compost is on top leaching down as you mentioned, it seems like the burlap would be a barrier for that nutrients. Am I over-worrying about that?

Thanks again for all the input from everyone!

I'm also curious if soaker hoses would be a good way to go for watering. I have some old barrels that I'm making into rain barrels and putting under the downspouts around the house. Was going to add a faucet near the bottom of the barrels and attach the soaker hoses there. Someone told me that they break down every 2 years or so and need replacing, but that sounds a little extreme to me.

I have soaker hoses I've used for 5-10 years. They do start to get leaks in them, or crack and break with handling, and when that happens the water comes out all in one place and nothing else along the line gets watered.

To prolong the life of soaker hoses:

- keep covered with mulch to reduce sunlight breakdown
- use the lowest pressure you can that gives adequate watering
- Drain and put away in freezing weather
- if a large leak develops, cut the hose at that point and install a 99 cent coupler.

Hope this helps.

Note: many/most people think adding lime always raises the pH, but it doesn't. In fact, you would be better off if you just forgot any connection between lime and pH.

No, don't forgot the connection between lime and pH. Lime raises soil pH and that's a good connection to remember.

Are you thinking of gypsum as a type of lime? I'm wondering if maybe that's where the glitch might be.

The burlap isn't a barrier for long as it rots quicker than the cardboard under moist mulch. No problem for planting through.

In July, we started a new bed over cardboard with chicken manure + bedding. Now easy to dig right through it all in the loosened soil. The cardboard is still there, but soft & thin, so not a problem even with a trowel.

Picture it like a pie --

bottom crust: cardboard
filling: mulch & compost materials
top crust: burlap

The burlap keeps the pile moist & materials from blowing away. It doesn't take long in moist conditions for the color to fade & become uniform brown rather than light.

If you don't want to use the burlap you could save it for lining the paths between the beds. In sunny dry summer weather it lasts a good while making it easy to keep shoes clean when going out for a few berries in the morning.

toxcrusadr: Thanks! I think I'll go with soaker hoses then. Seems like the best option for me.

corrine: Thanks for the input! I didn't know that they break down so fast. Didn't think of putting burlap on top either... that would help with the weeds that will surely be in the horse manure compost! Although, I'm going to use leaf mulch instead of wood chips on top of that... I'm guessing that I might have issues with the leaves easily sliding off the burlap. Maybe I can fix that with a little dirt on top or just building up the bed's barrier to contain the leaves.

Keep in mind that you are trying to create a woodland habitat so working to create a good, healthy garden soil is not necessarily what you want to do. Find a woodland that you want to create and take a good, in depth, look at the soil there and learn form that soil what you need to do. Adding manure, gypsum, lime, or much of any else besides leaves may be more detrimental to what you want to do then anything else.