Hello Ray
If your ground is as dry as you say I think you should wait until it rains a lot and your soil is nice and moist before you put on any compost on top of it. I plan to put mine on in November. I have found that a big advantage of the no-dig method is that even in hot weather I don’t have to water much because the compost layer keeps the soil underneath nice and moist – but I suspect that the soil has to be moist to begin with!
You could use black plastic (without lots of little holes!) before you put on the compost if you want to prepare the beds by killing off some of the weeds – pulling it back when rain is expected. After you have put on your compost in late autumn you could put the plastic on top of it and cut holes where you want to plant your fruit bushes. If you don’t have any tough weeds though you may not have to use the plastic at all as most ordinary weeds will not survive being buried by 7–15 cm of compost. Many people in England have to use black plastic when they take over an allotment that is full of weeds such as marestail, couch grass, blackberries or bindweed which are all very tough weeds.
Most vegetables and fruit grow well in most soils and plenty of compost makes soil even better for growing plants so I would only use a soil test if I found my plants were not growing well.
I am fairly new to this no-digging method, so I am interested to hear if what I have said is complete rubbish!
3 acres is a lot of garden – it would be too much for me! What are you going to do with all that fruit and veg?
I have not heard of the Fukuoka method, from the way you describe it, it sounds like complete nonsense but I am sure there must be more to it than what you write…
Compostpope