Root crops don't do well in their first year as the soil is still compacted and there is too much manure so they tend to fork out. Plant most root crops in the second year, when it is only necessary to pull back the loose top mulch to reveal a layer of fine dark soil. By the end of the first summer, the soil is revolutionised, and will contain hundreds of worms and soil bacteria. Just add a little top mulch to keep levels up, usually a mix of chips, bark, pine needles and hay. Scatter a little lime.
Worms also are so active that the leaves and peelings disappear overnight.
Leather boots take a little longer, jeans a week or so, and dead ducks a few days. Whether from neighbours untended fences, or from the uncontrolled edge of your own cultivation, the mulched area of zone one is under constant attack from ground invaders. Comfrey or any vigorous herbs should be planted as a barrier around your protected area, mulch it with cardboard, sawdust and straw, and rest easy from the labour of keeping your borders safe. The same approach can be used to contain useful rampant species, so that blackberries can be confined to openings in the forest, reedmace to pond edges surrounded by alder, and mint confined by shady dense bushes, rather than in tubs. Hens make a mess of mulch, but ducks can be released in mid winter to clean up slugs and snails.