would sheet composting, aka the lasagna method be an option? Manure (well aged), sawdust, and what have you. Look in the soils and composting forum for details...

First thing you should do is get a soil test done.

Sounds like the soil is the problem - the organic matter is probably exhausted. The health and consistancy of the soil is the most important thing - if the soil is poor and/or compacted then the roots won't go far or deep. The plants won't get enough water, or be able to draw enough nutrients. You have already seen the results - poor yields, and early setting of seed. Lots of nutrient deficiencies are caused by not enough water to transport the nutrients. In that case, adding extra fertilizer is just going to be a stop-gap effort, and isn't going to help much in the long run. What you do obviously depends on how much time and money you have available for this plot of land. Some things you should look into are:

Green Manures. A green manure crop is usually something like soybeans, clover, peas or vetch - these are all legumes and add nitrogen to the soil as well as biomass. Other crops such as millet, alfalfa or buckwheat bring other benefits and are also commonly used. The crop is tilled in or mowed down usually just after flowering. The best way to use a green manure this far north probably is to divide your land into quarters and use only three of the quarters for your food crops. The fourth quarter would be used for the green manure. You would rotate the parcels every year. Many people further south will plant their green manure as a winter cover crop, and use the land the rest of the year.

Living mulch. This is a cover crop that is planted in amongst your planned veggies. Vetch or clover is commonly used for this. This helps fix nitrogen, and reduce soil erosion and water loss by creating a layer of living matter over the soil. It also helps supress weeds. This is then tilled in or mowed down after harvesting.

You should ask at a local farmers co-op, university agriculture department, feed store, or whatever you have nearby to find out if there are any good green manures, living mulches or cover crops for your area. If they don't know, they'll probably know where you can get the information. The different plants have different requirements, benefits and drawbacks, and aren't ideal everywhere.

The best thing you could do for next year would be to have a good layer of organic matter added in the form of manure or compost. Make sure the manure is already aged if you're going to apply it just before planting. I assume that with two acres, you have some way of tilling it in, otherwise you'll have to rent or hire something/someone to do this for you.

If you decide not to go with a living mulch, you should still mulch since watering is obviously an issue. Evaporaton of water over a couple of acres is quite substantial, so you want to minimize that loss - the plants need the water badly! Plants that don't get enough water don't produce well. Whatever you use for mulch can be tilled in at the end of the year to add more bio-mass to the soil (or it can be left to decompose on the top of the soil and the worms will eventually bring it down where it's needed).

If you've got the time you can jury rig up some kind of drip irrigation too (PVC pipe with holes drilled in it connected up to a rain barrel that you fill with water (and perhaps some sort of soluable fertilizer when needed))- if you've got the money, there are lots of systems out there to buy.

A couple of acres is actually quite a lot of land for one person to cultivate! If you are able to improve the soil enough you might be able to focus your attention on a much smaller bit of land and still get enough veggies for your family.

BP

Great suggestions from BP!!!! She's not just another pretty face. LOL!!

Whatever you do, feed the soil, and in turn, it will feed the plants. I began composting 1.5 years ago, and the difference in our soil has been remarkable. Next year I would like to plant a veggie garden, and I'm looking forward to it.

My compost is made out of coffee grounds (300 lbs/week from a coffee shop), seaweed, shredded leaves, sawdust, and banana peels (30 lbs/week from a backery). I don't go out of my way or spend $$ for anything for the compost, and I keep the pile going in the winter. And when it comes to putting it in the gardens, well, I have a bad back, so I just throw it on top, and let the worms do the rest of the work. Lord only knows where they come from because prior to composting there was not a worm in sight here.

This summer I had a few neighbours ask what I was feeding the plants. Most plants grew 33% bigger and taller than other years, and only one plant showed signs of powdery mildew which is prevalent here. Usually half the gardens are covered with it.

We now have worms in the gardens where the soil has been fed, and the soil itself is so nice to work with - it's beginning to have that 'friable' quality which we all look for.

Oh, we did try growing carrots in 2004. They were so short and stubby - couldn't grow in that hard clay soil. This year a surprise carrot showed-up in a composted garden, and when we pulled it out, it was a beauty at 10 inches long!

Manure, manure and more manure - Aged, with straw mixed in, if possible! It's wonderful stuff! Coffee is great too and the worms love it! You can usually get manure free.