I shall also write something up for you once I play a game today 
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– When you start the game, how do you select where to put your settlement down?
I put it in the area I think will be most ideal for planning for the future of the city 
– What UI commands do you use to harvest trees/berries?
I click on the harvest tool
– What’s your workflow for creating farms?
I have specific needs for specific people to maximize production, once the right person comes around, I’ll start making farms, otherwise I survive on berries until a food trader comes into town 
– Which crops, and how many of each, do you plant?
Usually I plant to begin with, 3 11*11 plots, doing one before I even create the next to allow the crops time to grow so I have a steady source of food. I plant Carrots first, then Turnips, then Corn
– Has anyone yet managed to get two-headed corn?
Can’t say I have, but I’m now pushed to a great farming goal!
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I agree! The trapper has a reddish hue, perhaps red could work?
Well, the Footman already has a red banner, so I was thinking of something more like yellow or brown.
True. No matter the color, I like the idea.
Two-headed corn?!?! 
How have I never heard of this before?
Looks like I have something to do today…
– When you start the game, how do you select where to put your settlement down?
A hole in the ground to avoid early confrontation. Unfortunately due to latest patches Goblins spawn in even in a small fully explored/forested area with no connection to the remainder of the map. I’m a ‘Turtle type’
Example:
– What UI commands do you use to harvest trees/berries?
I use the Harvest Selection Tool in the Zone Management Section of the Toolbar.
– What’s your workflow for creating farms?
Start with bland vegetables and work up
– Which crops, and how many of each, do you plant?
11x11 of each crop other than flowers and one empty to get sizing for a double width field.
– Has anyone yet managed to get two-headed corn?
Unsure, Have gotten all attributes unlocked with farmer just have not noticed.
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Due to various gameplay changes since we first implemented double-headed corn, it is now really, really hard to get double headed corn. We will probably fix this when we revisit farming. 
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– When you start the game, how do you select where to put your settlement down?
Almost always on the foothills. I like to get a lot of trees, a lot of stone, and a lot of minerals, so that’s really the only convenient place. I dig into the mountain very early, and all my stockpiles are underground, only accessible through one entry.
– What UI commands do you use to harvest trees/berries?
Almost always use “h” shortkey, then click and drag with the mouse.
– What’s your workflow for creating farms?
- Early Game (<8 Hearthlings): Make 10 7x7 farms and 2 3x3 farms. Plant flowers in the 3x3 farms, and plant one carrot, one turnip, and one silkweed in the 7x7. Leave the other 7 farms fallow. One farmer.
- Mid Game (between 8 and 12 Hearthlings inclusive): Plant 4 of the fallow farms, one each of carrot, turnip, corn, and pumpkin. Two farmers.
- Late game (>12 Hearthlings): Plant the last three farms (corn, pumpkin, and silkweed), so that each vegetable (and silkweed) are each represented in two farms. Three or Four farmers.
I always format the 7x7 farms in two rows of 5 farms each, so essentially two giant 35x7 farms, each split in fifths. I leave enough room between the farms for a road (and for conveyor belts when using Zulser mod). I also use my low-body, low-mind stat Hearthlings for farmers. (low-body high-mind become crafters, high-body high-mind become footmen, and high-body low-mind stay workers, since they usually run long distances to my mines)
– Which crops, and how many of each, do you plant?
(described above)
– Has anyone yet managed to get two-headed corn?
Very possibly, but once my farms are running, I never pay them any attention. They just farm like good little Hearthlings, and dump their goods on the conveyor belts, which deposit them right next to my stockpiles deep in the heart of the mountain.
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I keep rolling the dice until I see a place where I can build on grass next to a mountain so that my rectangular settlement will fit nicely with (straight) mountain on two sides of the settlement, and I can build walls with roads out on the remaining two sides. This typically means plenty of forest in the footprint of the settlement which I clear first, giving me enough wood to last for the rest of my game generally. It’s a pretty big settlement, 97 by 87 including walls, the long side always parallel to the North-South line. I have the whole thing planned out on graph paper with 12 two-bed houses, 6 buildings for crafter shops, and 28 5x10 farm plots (the reason the settlement is always a particular orientation to north is so that each farm plot produces exactly 30 units of crop per harvest for a total harvest of 840 plants).
I use the buttons down below. I haven’t yet bothered to learn any key shortcuts.
First I map out the entire settlement, including the two sections of 14 5x10 farm plots. The long side of the farm plots are always parallel to the North-South line. While my workers are moving wood to storage around the peripheral of the building plots, I get a carpenter working on making some tools. I generally start with just one or two farmers at most, and get them started working on just one row of seven crop plots.
It takes me a while to build up to the full 28 farm plots (which in my experience takes about 6 farmers to manage well). It’s gotten a lot harder with the tweaked daily report requirements. I just can’t get enough farmers working to do what I want to do. I don’t even have enough hearthlings to get all the professions filled while still having a defensible, working settlement. The wealth requirements shoot up faster than it’s possible to actually acquire wealth with the workers you’re given along the way.
The nearest column of 4 farm plots to my crafter shops (where the weaver is) I plant silkweed. This is too much silkweed but until there’s another crop used by crafters I’ll stick with silkweed in these plots.
For the rest of the 24 plots, I plant a variety of crops, based on the speed at which they grow. What I’ve ended up with is 10 corn, 6 pumpkins, 4 carrots, 4 turnips. I don’t like planting crops right next to each other in a row, and I try to manage it so that when food is harvested it ends up stored with a variety of food types spread all around my settlement, that way my hearthlings don’t have far to go if they’re in the mood for a particular food. But, as I said, I can’t get enough hearthlings to actually work that many plots.
You’ll note I do not plant any brightbells or frostsnaps.
I never knew that existed. I typically do not watch my farms at all once they’re set up, there is too much else to do in the game, particularly now that there’s mining.
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Mmmmmm… I feel lied to! AFAIK There is no double-headed corn! 
Usually in a U-shaped mountain formation, for early- to mid-game access to stone and ores. This also provides the tactical advantage of only one front to fight goblin from for my non-peaceful games.
‘h’ + drag. Try not to drag over the UI hint thingy. I almost never cancel orders, and will rarely clear an annoying tree/plant.
1-3 small farms. Either an 11x11 whose crops I might change after a long while, or 2-3 smaller farms that I set and forget (this allows me to switch one to silkweed later on). I find any more and my food production spirals into a massive rutabaga hoard.
3 small farms are also very manageable by one farmer - I prefer saving villagers for building and mining!
Assuming I make three farm plots, 1 turnip/carrot, 1 pumpkin, 1 corn. The turnip/carrot one may be changed to silkweed later on.
http://images.medicaldaily.com/sites/medicaldaily.com/files/data/images/full/1/11/11158.jpg
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I would really love it if farmers picked the nearest plot when they’re done harvesting or doing some other task, and planted the entire plot before moving on to a new plot. If they were to go row-by-row within that plot, all the better, but I’ll settle just for some measure of efficiency within the plot, and going plot-by-plot. When they’re first creating a plot, I’d also love to see them finish the whole tilling thing first, before moving on to another plot.
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When settling I prioritise in this order:
Nearness to berries -> distance to a mountain - > amount of wide space with tight choke points (minimises number and size of walls that need to be built) ->distance to water (this will get higher when water becomes more important if for example, drinking or fishing get implemented).
One of my hearthlings becomes a carpenter, one becomes a farmer after the first hoe is made (usually first thing produced).
I make the farmer make 7-10 plots of land, usually doing 1-2 of each crop and leaving around 2 plots as furrows to replace depleted plots.
I surround my farms in 3-wide roads, originally placing them in a grid pattern with roads filling every space inbetween them. Then a single road in the middle of the farmland runs to a nearby main food storage area. I leave lots of room to expand farming for when more immigrants arrive.
I use the hotkey for gathering, unless I’m sleepy or something then I’ll just deal with the menu clicking.
I get the carpenter to mass produce things like dressers to sell and buy food to supplement berries/farm output to rush more citizens while also rapidly increasing net worth.
This makes for steady population growth and I direct a portion of those towards farming.
As for double headed corn? I don’t really know, I don’t look much at my farms except for adding new ones and checking at some point if a plot is depleted and needs to be rotated. Other than that I just let the hearthlings auto farm it.
my farms are typically 11x11 plots with 3 spaces in every direction being made into roads. Maintaining this grid pattern when expanding as well.
EDIT: Oh wow this post is from '14
Oh well.
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