Two Sunflower Patches

I'm in the early stages of converting areas of our property that were lawn into garden and orchards. I'm trying to get plants to do all the work over the next few years. Since sunflowers grow really well around here with minimal effort on my part, I'm planting a lot of them.

The way it's supposed to work is the sunflowers grow a large root system and send sugars and starches down into the soil to feed the bacteria and fungi in the dirt. When the sunflowers die in the fall, you cut the sunflower stalks down, and plant autumn crops like winter rye. After a few years of that, what was compacted soil with minimal organic matter is improved. Importantly, it improves in an exponential growth pattern, which makes sense because you're relying on the prior seasons' improvements to improve more. Ultimately what you're trying to do is replicate the soil fertility of an old forest by recreating the characteristics of primeval forest soil in soil that only grows produce. By contrast, tilling the soil and adding fertilizer every year degrades or keeps the soil condition the same season to season.

I can actually see that "it works" already. One sunflower patch is growing in something that's like forest floor soil--it's old decomposed mulch for flowerbeds. Those sunflowers are 2-3 times bigger than their brothers and sisters planted in the old lawn at the same time from the same batch of seeds.

There are some principles at work that you can read about or watch youtube videos about the don't really make it into your bones until you seem them first hand or do them yourself. When you're trying to replicate nature, you can't accomplish it through what amounts to central planning. More on that later.