Farming
Product | XP gained | Skill(s) | Recipe | Ingredient 1 | Ingredient 2 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Plowed Land x1 |
none | Trowel x1 |
Grass x1 |
Step 4: Planting Crops
Seed Packets
If you found seed packets, you will need to open them. This will give you the loose seeds that you will plant.
- Put a Seed Packet in your main inventory
- Right click on the seed packet and select "open seed packet."
- Make sure your loose seeds are in your MAIN inventory
Product | XP gained | Skill(s) | Recipe | Ingredient 1 |
---|---|---|---|---|
Crop Seeds x50 |
none | Crop Seeds Packet x1 |
Planting Seeds
- Verify you have some sort of water in your inventory to water your seeds with. You will generally need 50+ units of water per tile.
- Right click on a tile you've tilled (a tile with three furrows).
- Click "Sow Seed -> <Crop Name>"
- Right click on the newly planted seeds and select "Info." Leave this window open to the side so you can see how well watered your crops are.
- Immediately water the crop by right clicking and choosing "Water -> <Number>". I suggest you start by watering all crops with at least 50 units.
- Continue watering in 5-10 unit increments until the crop info box says "Well Watered."
Product | XP gained | Skill(s) | Recipe | Ingredient 1 | Ingredient 2 | Ingredient 3 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Potato Crop x1 |
none | Plowed Land x1 |
Potato Seeds x4 (consumed) |
Water (consumed) |
Step 5: Growing Crops
Watering
Remember to keep your crops in the "Well Watered" state. You will need to check them at least once per day unless it is raining. A watering can will speed up this process significantly.
If you're low on water, you will have to hope that it rains often enough to keep your crops watered. Placing Rain Collector Barrels around your garden to collect rain will be necessary to make sure you don't lose a harvest of crops and starve. Place them near your garden so you don't have to walk far to fill up your watering can. If you haven't got a high enough carpentry skill, a variety of water storage containers have a rain factor, which allows them to be filled when placed in the rain.
Growing Time
Crops will take different lengths of time to grow depending on what seeds are planted. Crops progress through basic stages of growth:
- Seedling
- Young
- Fully Grown
- Ready to Harvest
- Seed-bearing (NOT "In bloom")
Crop Specifications
Crop | Minimum Water | Maximum Water | Average Days Until Harvest | Additional Days for Seeds | Required Seeds | Days to Stale | Days to Rot |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Carrots | 35 | 85 | 15 | ? | 12 | 6 | 8 |
Broccoli | 70 | - | 30 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 7 |
Radish | 45 | 85 | 17 | 1-2 | 6 | 3 | 7 |
Strawberries | 85 | - | 22 | ? | 12 | 2 | 5 |
Tomato | 75 | - | 26 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 12 |
Potato | 65 | - | 26 | 3 | 4 | 14 | 28 |
Cabbage | 85 | - | 14 | 1 | 9 | 2 | 4 |
NOTE: Strawberries when harvested go back to stage 2 instead of being removed.
NOTE: Carrots and Radishes need more water to start out: Carrots min 80 in phase 1 and 70 in phase 2, Radishes min 70 in phase 1.
According to farming_vegetableconf.lua, the above values are inaccurate. The growing time per phase (5 phases to harvest, 6 to seeds) are configured as follows:
Carrots: 50-55h
Broccoli: 103-117h
Radishes: 56-62h
Strawberry: 103-131h
Tomatoes: 89-103h
Potatoes: 89-103h
Cabbage: 46-52h
This remains to be tested ingame, but would mean that crops grow faster than indicated in the table in the current version.
Fertilizer
Fertilizing your crops will help them grow more quickly. If you use NPK Fertilizer , it will remove 20 hours off of the current growth cycle of the plant. If there are less than 20 hours remaining on that growth cycle, it will immediately proceed to the next level and the extra hours will be lost. Generally, fertilizer is hard to come by for the large farms needed to sustain yourself, so it should only be used in an emergency to speed plant growth when food is getting scarce. Using too much fertilizer on a plant will kill it (4 or 5 uses).
You can make your own fertilizer as long as you have level 2 of Carpentry and some rotten food, you'll need to build a Composter and once you have built it you can place perishable food that has gone rotten inside, usually it takes 2 week to get some fertilizer, you'll need a sack to get the fertilizer and then you can use it on your plants.
Threats to Crops
Zombies
- Your immediate problem is the constant threat of zombies. Zombies can trample your crops and force your hard work (and water) into waste. Keep zombies away from your crops.
- Zombies may go inside some of your nearly-grown crops and may try to ambush you.
- Try to plant in a secure location and always check for zombies in your crops before turning your back to the crops.
- Crawlers (the zombies that crawl on the ground rather than walk around) may go unseen in almost-fully grown crops.
- Growing crops on patches with zombie blood causes the seedlings to become instantly "sickly".
Plant Diseases
- There are currently three diseases in Project Zomboid: 1) Mildew, 2) Insects, and 3) Devil's Water Fungi (DWF)
- These diseases will slow the growth of your plants, possibly kill them, and/or cause them to produce a smaller harvest than normal.
- You can combat mildew and insects with a spray.
- Devil's Water Fungi cannot be eliminated with a spray. Any tiles with DWF must be dug up and replanted to remove the disease.
Plants can be afflicted by the diseases listed above, and diseases can jump from plant to plant in close proximity. Strawberries have been reported to be particularly susceptible to disease. The best solutions to keeping disease to a minimum are to treat all infestations as soon as they appear, and to either grow strawberries in an area that is totally separate from your other plants (preferably enclosed within walls and a door), or not to grow strawberries at all.
Plant Disease Problems
- Mildew causes your plants to mature more slowly than they would normally.
- Insects cause a growing plant to consume more water. Affected plants will need considerably more water and attention than healthy plants.
- Devil's Water Fungi (DWF) is arguably the biggest danger to your garden since it causes plants that are harvested to give smaller yields than healthy plants, and there is no countermeasure to fight it with, so it can quickly get out of control. DWF regularly occurs on plants that have been infected with either Mildew or Pest Flies for some time, so keep those two diseases under control and it should keep DWF to a minimum. Unless a plant is very close to harvesting, it is usually worth removing plants affected with DWF as soon as possible since the biggest threat is that of DWF spreading to your other plants.
Making Plant Disease Cures
Either the gardening trait, farmer profession or have read The Farming Magazine are needed to craft these items.
Product | XP gained | Skill(s) | Recipe | Ingredient 1 | Ingredient 2 | Ingredient 3 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Insecticide Spray |
0 XP | none | OR |
Gardening Spray Can (Empty) (consumed) |
Water (3 units) (consumed) |
Cigarettes x5 (consumed) |
Mildew Spray |
0 XP | none | OR |
Gardening Spray Can (Empty) (consumed) |
Milk (consumed) |
Note: Even rotten milk can be used to make Mildew Spray.
Plant Health
When you sow seeds to grow crops, a plant's starting health is determined by your Farming skill. The higher your skill, the higher the starting health. The health, as denoted as a percentage, increases slowly over time, unless affected by disease or inappropriate water levels. Currently, radishes and carrots have a maximum water level and thus can be overwatered, causing them to lose health. Thus, it is recommended to grow these crops in an indoors/roofed farm area, so that rain doesn't cause them to lose health from overwatering.
The health of a plant determines the size of the yield upon harvest. Seeds are given to the character when a plant is harvested during its seed-bearing phase; this is the last phase of a plant's life, and appears after the plant is able to be harvested solely for food.
Health levels from least to highest are: Healthy, Flourishing, Verdant, Thriving (not a complete list)
Water levels from driest to wettest are: Parched, Dry, Thirsty, Fine, Well watered
Farm Equipment
Seed Packets
Seeds
Farm Tools
Item | Description |
---|---|
A can that can hold water. It is used to water the crops. | |
A container that can hold water. It can also be used to water the crops. | |
A small metal shovel. It is used to till the soil. |