I began my food growing focused on plants, and that’s still where I am most comfortable and confident in my homesteading skills.
Growing gardens and orchards is actually not about the plants so much as it is about the soil and the life that lives there. Tend your soil, it will tend your plants. A light bulb went on for me at a NOFA summer conference years ago hearing NY farmer Steve Gilman say something like: “I am not a plant grower but a microherd rancher!” The importance of soil has become more recognized and understood as the key to plant health, especially as we move away from chemical agriculture.
Permaculture taught me some skills that have made my gardening much more successful and a lot easier. Building soil with sheet mulching and hugelkultur is the foundation. We didn’t really have enough soil on this property for growing – we have to make it with these techniques. I also learned to stop tilling and keep the soil covered from permaculture and NRCS.
I have a chemical free garden – I’ve never used a synthetic fertilizer, or a pesticide or herbicide – not even organically approved kinds. We have seen very little disease, and only have a few pest problems. I do use row cover for some of my kale crops to keep the cabbage moths and their wormy offspring from surprising me in my broccoli dishes.
Otherwise, living with some damage, and doing some handpicking of bugs (for later feeding to the poultry usually) works fine.
I probably weed for 1 hour a year in my garden due to how serious I am about mulching. I also use cover crops and am trying out some living mulches, especially in our perennial plantings.
We have an annual garden that provides most of our vegetables for the year. We are also establishing perennial vegetables and diverse orchards. Here are a few food crops we grow: perennial: peach, persimmon, pear, mulberry, crabapple, azarole, nanking cherry, blueberry, goumi, siberian peashrub, jostaberry, honeyberry, serviceberry, gooseberry, various currants, lingonberry, huckleberry, hardy kiwi, hazelnuts, comfrey, nettles, asparagus, Solomon seal, perennial onions, cattail hearts, dandelion root; lots of herbs; annual veggies include: leeks, squash, snap and drying beans, peas, eggplant, tomato, carrots, beets, parsnips, kale, collards, Brussel sprouts, potatoes, popcorn, celery.
Our goal is to grow for our animals as well, especially for the winter. For instance, winter squash, root veggies, kale, and drying beans. 
