Re: 8 - are you familiar with the food forest movement? There are some great resources out there for how to build edible forests vertically, which also happens to be a lot easier to maintain once it's been well established - hard for weeds to get any foothold when every bit of growing area is already packed with plants you want.

e.g. A short article featuring several people doing this in their backyards in CA.

In Boston, there's a coalition working on creating food forest sites in local community gardens throughout the city to improve local food access and neighborhood engagement.