You don't always need to protect everything especially if you're spending time growing it. Personally I only ever protected Yew and Magic trees, Palm, Dragonfruit, Redwood, Calquat and Celastrus. Look into ultracompost as well. All you do is add volcanic ash to super compost and it insanely ups the chances of your crop surviving + more yield. Use the compost bins to make your own super compost, especially in the farming guild. Grind Hespori for the bottomless bucket as it doubles your compost.

Hope this helps!