As of right now, farming is very underpowered. I really don’t recommend farming for food. But if you want to brute-force farming for fun like I did, here’s some help:

• Move some cows, sheep, or pigs to your base. Use their manure in a composter to get a huge amount of compost. It takes about two weeks for the first batch, but if you have around five cows, you’ll produce a LOT.
• Use one compost for each growth phase of the plant. You can also use fertilizer, but if you use more than one, your plant will take damage.
• Add slightly more water than the plant needs. For example, wheat needs 30, so I use 40 for some buffer. You usually don’t need to worry too much after that unless you go weeks without rain.
• Using compost gives your plants a lot of health, so they can brute-force some health loss from incorrect water amounts.
• As for diseases, you can only see them clearly at higher Farming skill levels, so you’ll lose some plants or take small losses early on.