Dealing with an overgrown garden

Next growing season we are going to have a proper big vegetable garden to have more vegetables and a more continuos supply. We want to start towards being self sufficient in vegetables like we are for fruit.
In the summer I laid one trial bed in the overgrown garden area using cardboard over the grass and then a thick layer of wood chip mulch. My plan was by next season the cardboard would have broken down and the mulch would be weed free and ready to plant my new vegetable crops. This first bed I didn't know that the cardboard needed to be really wet, I learnt this later.
Alongside the first bed we put our three loaned chickens in a large run and they did a fantastic job of changing the grass and weeds into a cleared area over six months.

Garden when the chickens were first added

Garden area after a few months of the chickens clearing it. 

Once they had cleared most of the area but a few larger plants, we shifted them and laid another two beds. I used the wet cardboard (after removing all tape and plastic) and then mulch. We had a lot of mulch from the trees we had cut down on our arrival but we have gone through it pretty quickly putting it on the gardens to keep the weeds away.
I used string to lay out the beds. I made the three beds the same width so when I make bird covers etc, they will fit all the beds. The paths in between, I made wide enough for the wheelbarrow and to crouch down in, without hitting the other bed.
The mulch goes across all beds and the paths as one big layer so weeds don't grow up in the margin between the path and beds.
There is one more bed, which already has the rhubarb growing in it. This one has not been mulched and at the end of the rhubarb is an asparagus bed. I will have to wait for spring to see exactly where the asparagus bed is planted or if it is not producing anymore.
A few weeks a go I planted one of the beds with leaks, garlic, shallots and spring onions. I covered it with the protective netting to keep out the blackbirds. Despite that something still seems to manage to dig up the garlic but it is good to see, the garlic is already creating roots.
Last week I made a plan based on these three beds being four metres long. I ended up using an Excel workbook with each worksheet being a different bed, with what will be planted, if a seedling or a seed, when it will be harvested and what will be planted next in the bed.
Once I had my three beds planned, I had one more worksheet that is by month and what needs to be bought to be grown from seed, or transplanted etc. each month. This plan covers a full year.
The garden is organised.
Now back to the summer fruits. Plums followed the loquats.