creating new planting beds

I have a question which I'm sure someone can answer for me.... I have a big area in my yard which was originally lawn, butnow I want to convert it into planting beds. Last summer I covered it with about 10" of hog fuel (cedar & cedar bark shreds), which have now packed down to about 2" thick.
I have a great (unlimited quantities, delivered free!!!) source for worm castings, so I am thinking of spreading it on the area a few inches deep, then all I will need to do is win the lottery so I can afford to dump about a foot of topsoil/compost mix on it.
Should I scrape the cedar off the soil first, or leave it there? I'm not sure whether it will leach nitrogen or hamper root growth or cause some other "not good" things to happen! thanks for any feedback/advice....

If I were you, Id build raised beds, and clean the ceder from the bed spots. Then you will only have to build up the soil in the beds, and it won't cost so much.The beds can be covered easily to protect from frost bugs etc. They have worked great for me.

Good idea, I think I'll do that in the side yard, but the back yard beds are way too big, one is approx. 80 feet by 15 feet and two others are about 40 feet by 10 feet each, so I've decided to try to lasagna them to about 12" higher than the lawn. My back hurts already just thinking about all the wheelbarrow loads it will take!!! but it will be great when it's done. I'll have to get out there and take some "before" pics

carena, what is "hog fuel" and where do you get it? and where do you get large quantities of worm castings? i too have a large area of former lawn which i am converting into a flower garden and i am in despair about how to get enough organic material into these large garden beds sooner than later! thanks :)

KarenMarie, Hog fuel is a mulch just like barkdust but instead of being chopped up into little chunks, it's big shreds of bark. You can get fir, cedar, etc. I'm not sure why it's called hog fuel...you can usually buy it from any place that sells barkdust.
About the worm castings, I'm lucky enough to live near a worm distribution business, and the owner said I could have all the used worm bedding I want.

thanks for the info carena ... i'm going to continue to check back at this forum to see what people are doing ... building up soil is a long and tedious task but so necessary!