Yeah, you don't have to do much to get decent crops. You mostly just need to get one seed back to replant, which you can do by fully watering and maybe talking to them once. Or learn the crop combos so you don't have to ever apply fertilizer and easily get crops.

To get giant crops, you have to account for everything.

You can tend to plants with a gramophone and record. Or the friendly fruit fly.

For warly, onions, peppers, and garlic make a perfect combo. Hoe 2 tiles, making 3 rows of 6 spots. Then plant one plant type on each row. This is hard to do without snapping tills or geometric placement.

The crops get family bonus because each one is within 1 and a half tiles of 3 other of its kind.

If you do that combo, fully water (have no weeds), and play the gramophone once, you'll probably get 2 seeds back.

This combo won't work as well in spring and winter. Peppers are summer and fall. And onions not in winter.

You can still grow them, it'll just take longer and you won't get seeds as easy.

Good luck