Excellent article! Your directions are very clear and accurate. This is the best way to build good soil from scratch. It is usually a lot cheaper to find some of these materials than it is to buy bags of soil.

When lasagna gardening (aka sheet mulching), it is good to keep a couple of things in mind: (1) You are right that one needs to use more of the carbon-rich "brown" materials (straw, dead leaves, cardboard, newsprint, etc.) than nitrogen-rich "green" materials (food scraps, manure, coffee grounds, lawn clippings from non-treated yard, etc.). Sooner or later, it will all break down, but for the fastest results, it's useful to know about the C:N ratios of different materials. Check out this site and scroll down for a list of common ingredients and their C:N ratios. Somewhere around 20:1 or 30:1 is a pretty good goal for the whole thing. http://www.homecompostingmadeeasy.com/carbonnitrogenratio.html

(2) Water it well. Keep it wet. The whole mess stays above the ground and it drys out really fast in many climates. If it gets too dry, the process grinds to a halt. Keep it moist, but not too soaking wet as to cool it down. This is tough if you use cardboard sheets, but easier to distribute water to the layers if you use other Carbon sources like leaves or straw.

Yes, you are right: plant in it right away. The plants know what to do. The first year will be good. The second year will be OMG!!! Good soil is black gold.