Well Bruce,
Half an acre garden? That is a LOT. I mean, I currently have 2 acres but most of it is just various trees (eg spruce, maple, ash, etc), ornamental trees (like magnolias, gingko, tuliptree, paulownia, flowering bushes) and many fruit trees from mulberrys to figs, apples, pears, apricots, peaches, cherries, persimmon, pawpaw, plum, chestnut, hazel, berries, etc but you do not really need to do much with those.
A vegetable garden is much more work. if yo do not look at your trees for a month or two, likely nothing bad happens, but veggies need constant, almost daily attention. So half an acre is really very much. but you can literally grow tons of food. What will you plant?
I have a wheat cover crop now in half of my (not really big) vegetable garden, I plan to terminate it at the beginning of May/end of April and plant melons, sweet corn, tomatoes, basil, beans, peppers and aubergine there.