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Gardening - what do you plant?
Turjan
Posts: 1,717 Member
In this game, I started looking into gardening after I had been playing already for quite some time. Which may be a bit surprising, given I had been playing quite a few sims in the science career, where the gardening skill is one of the metrics for progression. However, I mostly preferred to just read skill books in the library or, later, listening to tabcasts while fishing, cooking or writing a book. This means I had sims who had mastered gardening without ever having harvested or planted anything, let alone weeded, watered or fertilized. However, I started getting interested when it came to making ambrosia, and since then, I've slightly improved in this regard 
.
Basically, what I'm interested in, how do all of you deal with gardening? Do you do it at all? How do you set it up? And, last not least, what do you plant?
To make a start, I just talk about what I do nowadays.
This here is the same idea, but the garden - on the upper floor no less - is separated from the bedroom. It even has a sprinkler
. The teens can fix the garden before they go to school:
I also have used several greenhouses already, often, but not always, in combination with the SwiftGro Gardening Station. My latest attempt includes those sunflowers that produce "sunshine" as fertilizer, and the combination is as close as you can get to "official cheating", it's so good. You have to replant all the time though.
Now, the layout of that garden is not good - it looks like that as it was born from the preexisting garden beds on that Moonlight Falls lot. Turning everything by 90 degrees would help with some of the shortcomings. However, in the end, it works. Still, you are busy all the time, so I finally succumbed and ordered the gardening service from a mod:
I'm sure I forgot something, but now I'm interested in hearing how you deal with all of this
.
.Basically, what I'm interested in, how do all of you deal with gardening? Do you do it at all? How do you set it up? And, last not least, what do you plant?
To make a start, I just talk about what I do nowadays.
- In the beginning, I may just plant whatever I have, but I still often skip this phase by learning gardening theoretically.
- Given I use the Seasons EP, I pretty much exclusively plant indoors in whatever setup that is suitable.
- I generally do not plant cooking ingredients, with the two big exceptions being flame fruits and life plants. This doesn't mean I never plant garlic, tomatoes or potatoes, but if I do, I use them as fertilizer (garlic) or just sell the stuff. For cooking, I just buy what is buyable.
- I have never managed to finish the opportunity chain that leads to omni plants. Nope. I never got past eggs and cheese.
- Most of my sims know alchemy, which means those ingredients are a must in that case. The minimum are Wolfsbane, Red Valerian, Spotlight Mushrooms and Red Toadstool for the most useful elixirs, and to a lesser extent the other ingredient plants.
- I love the idea of the University Life herbs, and I often plant them, but when it comes to actually using them, I mostly don't do it. Not sure why. The same is true for the coffee beans. I like how the plants look .
- I usually don't plant trees, given I do mostly indoor gardens. The occasional money tree may slip through, but I usually regret it.
- I never planted all those different grapes from France. I still have to use that wine maker, as I haven't even tried it. That's still a project for the future, as I tell myself I want to do it, but this hasn't materialized yet.
This here is the same idea, but the garden - on the upper floor no less - is separated from the bedroom. It even has a sprinkler
. The teens can fix the garden before they go to school:I also have used several greenhouses already, often, but not always, in combination with the SwiftGro Gardening Station. My latest attempt includes those sunflowers that produce "sunshine" as fertilizer, and the combination is as close as you can get to "official cheating", it's so good. You have to replant all the time though.
Now, the layout of that garden is not good - it looks like that as it was born from the preexisting garden beds on that Moonlight Falls lot. Turning everything by 90 degrees would help with some of the shortcomings. However, in the end, it works. Still, you are busy all the time, so I finally succumbed and ordered the gardening service from a mod:
I'm sure I forgot something, but now I'm interested in hearing how you deal with all of this
. 10
Comments
I always do outdoor gardening separated by rail fence, havent tried indoor though.
Fairies also typically make gardening easy.
Never do what I did, and have a Mummy that crafts nectar, you'll spend all day in the garden due to how slow mummies are
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I used to go all in with gardening, trying to get one of each plant, including the ones from WA, but that always ended up in a mess. I'm never able to organize the garden and everything is haphazardly placed, so of course it's inefficient. Maybe one day I'll have a green thumb sim who puts some actual effort in and uses the greenhouse/Swiftgro thing. At one point I made a community garden with all of the plants so sims could collect what they needed for their own progression, but that's been a while.
I'm currently not really paying attention to gardens because I hate all the inventory space they use.
But since then I've deleted the fake corn stalks and had her start planting again. She uses the fruits she grows (mostly berries such as raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, etc. and fruits from the two fruit trees) from home for canning and anything extra is sold at the local grocery for extra money.
Also, if you want to try indoors: basements are your best bet. It's a bit counterintuitive, as, in real life, the electricity bills would be too high, except for illicit activities, but in the game it works just fine. Needs ITF grass rugs though.
@Devalaous Ugh, yes, that dormancy issue is a pain. The plants get stuck on "harvest", but the interaction isn't there. I had that issue even with NRaas mods. I had to laugh at your mummy story
@KevinL5275 Oh yes, plumbots are the best gardeners of those I tried. They also do it automatically, at least as long as you avoid giving them sentience chips. I'm not sure what the lesson here is: sentience corrupts
@thebriamon The store is full of official cheats and shortcuts. Buggy cheats and shortcuts, but they are there
@Amphora Beautiful pictures. I have yet to use the cannery station. I heard it also needs a mod to make it work properly
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Sims that I play until death all master gardening, cooking and fishing in their lifetime because I want my sims to eat perfect quality meals for the best moodlet. These days my sims usually start out with a house that already has a few plants in the garden because I don't play a long lifespan and I want them eating good meals right out of the gate! Although the house comes with a small garden, my sims start out by planting the basics - lettuce (autumn salad), apples and grapes (pancakes), tomatoes (ratatouille and spaghetti). As their cooking skill increases alongside the gardening skill they add the other plants for meal preparation.
My sims mostly grow base game plants. They only grow WA grapes if a sim in the household makes nectar but I do that less and less these days. I don't see the point in the herbs and coffee that come with University so rarely bother with them. Occasionally my sims will find seeds (sims that garden often roll wishes to find seeds) for plants from other EPs/Store sets and I might have them add them to the garden if they seem useful. The berries that come with Bohemian Garden are good for a change from apple pancakes
My sims only grow life fruit and death flowers when they roll the wish to do so once they have reached the levels required. I don't allow my sims to hold death flowers or eat life fruit because I don't want them prolonging their lives when I have a new generation waiting in the wings. I usually only have one sim per generation accept the opportunity chain to grow eggs/cheese, then steak/patties.
Edit to add: I don't have Seasons installed so gardening is done outdoors.
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Bohemian Garden set, with even more new plants.
I plant them in rows, with no spaces between the plants in the rows, and two or three spaces between the rows. I arrange them by type and size of plant. So I have rows of mushrooms, small fruit plants, small vegetable plants, tall fruits, tall vegetables, short herb plants, tall herb plants, alchemy herbs, and coffee beans, with trees in a separate plot, spaced farther apart. Special seeds get planted with whatever category they fit in. So life fruit goes with tall fruits, flame fruit goes with small fruits, and eggs, cheese, meats, and omni plants go with tall vegetables or in rows of their own. If I'm not planting everything, any short rows will get combined with some other categories, like short fruits in the front, and tall ones in the back, for example.
I don't have any pictures of my current sim's garden itself, and it's early spring in her game right now, so she doesn't have a new garden planted yet, but here are two of her jogging past her garden.
Here is her garden in France: It's mainly for making nectar, so it's mostly fruit, especially the French grapes, but she also has a few vegetables, eggs, cheese, and meats, to use for cooking while she's there. It's arranged differently than I usually do. I usually have long rows running front to back, but because of it being in France, and thus her time being limited, I planted the slower growing plants under the Swift Grow station, and the faster growing plants with just a sprinkler.
I plant indoors, outdoors, in greenhouses or basements, with or without planters or soil rugs—whichever works best with the space/resources the household has and what I want them to plant.
Greenhouse with planters and a mix of fruit and veg, plus a random money tree:
Alchemy plants in indoor planters, fruit trees outside and small, edible plants on soil rugs in the greenhouse:
Fruit harvestables for nectar-making in a sub-basement MOO'd to the floor:
Sometimes I plant anything and everything, but for the most part I avoid planting money trees, plasma fruit, herbs, coffee beans and crystal flowers on my home lot unless I need the extra cash (red berry coffee beans are a lucrative crop), or if I have vampires, alchemists or bot-builders in the family. I would like to use the herbs more often for their effects, but I usually forget.
Generally, I plant all fruits, vegetables, and the edible SN plants for recipes, since favorite and perfect meals are important to my families. All of my green thumb gardeners also do the opportunities for the dairy, meat and omni plants. If those opportunities don’t show up in a timely manner on their own, I will use MC to force them. My Sims read books, watch TV or listen to tabcasts to improve some skills, but never for gardening.
Over the years, I've built up and saved various perfect community garden lots that contain all or almost all available plants, which I sometimes place in my edited towns. Cheaty, cheaty me.
Heritage Community Gardens:
Legacy Gardens:
The Sleeping Gardens:
Avalon Orchard & Vineyard:
I use the harvestables from community gardens as seed starters on my home lots, which works especially well for my nectar-makers. Community gardens are also good for “homeless” Sims to collect food for their daily meals or for science Sims to analyze for samples. Not having to water or fertilize plants is a nice time-saver too. And I always use a consignment store to sell my extra produce (and OFC nectar).
When I have saves where I want ambrosia, I plant larger groupings of life fruit (I do this for nectar making too).
I also only catch a few deathfish to start and then just breed more in fish tanks.
I occasionally use the Swift Grow and the tractor on my large farming lots, but I tend to use just the tractor more often. My farmer Sims take the cold/dormant seasons off and use that time for other things. By then they have WA chests or CC chest-likes filled with surplus. I love using the canning station to create food rations in fall and winter, or I may use that time to start making nectars or focus on other skills and hobbies.
@Sharonia Oh, I know that feeling, because in the beginning, it can be a bit overwhelming. It's okay with the base game plants, because those are pretty forward food plants that are used in the recipes your sims discover when they learn cooking, and then you get the flame fruit for a cake that gives your sims a good moodlet, ambrosia that resets your sims' age, and of course that often broken opportunity chain, where the last plant lets you grow nearly everything, and yes, that includes all sorts of objects. Which I never did.
However, if you use those expansions that add lots of additional plants (University Life, Supernatural, also ITF), it can get easily a bit much if you never started in the first place.
@Mikezumi That approach makes sense for your play style. Of course, that also means a few more mods to make sure the sims actually eat the great food you prepare and don't just cook their burnt pancakes on their own or grab a yoghurt, although the fridge stocks their favorite meal. Regarding the opportunity chain, I got once to the patty stage, only for that one to bug out. Not even Marcus got that one down
@IreneSwift Those are very orderly gardens, and I especially like the France one, which is very pretty. I tend to just mix things up as they come and try to gauge what's needed by the incoming harvestables, which means things will be always mixed. While I said I only use indoor gardens, I actually had an outdoor garden in one of my SV games. As I use Southern California weather there, there's hardly ever any frost, which means I can at least try my luck.
@starguru Wow, those are awesome gardens. I know those fully stocked community gardens from some of the custom worlds. The one in my Twinbrook game is unfortunately gone, not sure why. Maybe, zombies. It's a pity that, even inside, as soon as you have real soil as ground, the gardens see winter. Hmm, I have to check whether I can recolor the ITF rugs? Never tried that. I prefer ponds to aquariums regarding death fish, as I'm not good with aquariums
All of the alchemy plants are available to harvest at the consignment store, which also has an elixir register. They aren't free either, thanks to NRaas mods. There is a $100 charge to go through that door, which is the only access to this garden.
The French grapes are also available, in this garden behind the local nectary. There is also a charge on the door to get to them, but I don't remember how much it is. My current sim didn't need to go there, as she has gone to all of the WA worlds.
I ended up using one of the nraas mods to force the plants to the next stage or just kill then revive them to get them growing plants again. Funny how in both Sims 3 and 4, seasons mess up Gardening and make it far more frustrating than it ever needed to be.
My mummy gardener ended up with purple bandages (CAS editing) to reflect all the times she fell into the nectar maker while stomping her fruits into nectar, she did manage to get to level 10 off the nectar maker career, it just took quite some time. Ended up going to the Future to get my mummies hoverboards, as it replaces the slow walking , and built a heiroglyphic-covered plumbot while I was there.
Mummies and advanced technology...not something you'd ever expect to be paired together xD
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Zombies are a likely cause for ruined gardens; horses and deer are another possibility if you have Pets. That’s another good reason to stick with indoor gardens and greenhouses if you can. Fences with locked gates or having access only from a building are needed tactics otherwise. Or use balconies. My treehouses thwart wild animals nicely, but I’m not sure they would be zombie-proof. Will zombies climb ladders?
Yes, ITF rugs are recolorable! I like to match them to the dirt mound of the plants.
I was never great with aquariums or fish bowls either; remembering to take care of the fish in an overstuffed household was always a struggle for me. So, now I disable all that feeding and cleaning, and I stick my deathfish or lobster filled aquariums right in my kitchens. Bon appétit!
I almost forgot, but I also built a community garden greenhouse for my town. I swear there used to be a Community Garden lot type but it's not there anymore. But maybe I'm remembering wrong.
Anyway, I have it stocked with all types of harvestibles and on the inside of the greenhouse itself are various fruit trees.
I even included some gnomes to keep those pesky deer away
I mostly use this for my foraging sims or just as a fun place for my sims to go to for fun.
I guess I have been lucky in the sentience department, because my plumbots don't have a problem gardening with sentience chips. But they do like to swim in the pool in the summer non-stop.
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This here is my lot that I had built for my simself and her boyfriend over in Appaloosa Plains Hidden Springs. They have 2 horses for them to ride as well as the bee boxes for honey, some chicken coops and a dairy cow as well as their garden...
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@IreneSwift That's a great idea of how to use the barrier to entry system. It's also deer- and zombie-proof if the entrance is through a house. I guess my sims are all just a bunch of freeloaders
@Devalaous Hmm, I never managed to rescue those bugged out plants, so you definitely did better there.
Yes, mummies on hoverboards is the perfect combination
@starguru What an awesome treehouse, love it. Are those trees cc? I guess you moved the tree into the platforms?
Now that you mentioned having aquariums without the need to care for them, I had to go and look for a tuning mod, and I think I found it. It's the same situation with other small pets, which I love, but I'm not fond of having them die on me all the time. The kids may look after one or two, but it starts getting difficult after that.
@Amphora Yes, the "community garden" lot type is disused. It's still somewhere in the files, but it doesn't really do anything. Lovely garden lot again.
@KevinL5275 Heh, yes, the pool is even used by my non-sentient gardening plumbots. The sentience chip made my plumbot play computer games or use those VR goggles all day, and her chores definitely suffered. Mhmm, sounds familiar
@lisasc360 I like that rural lot of yours. I perfectly fits the landscape. Which reminds me that I yet have to play in Appaloosa Plains.
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The greenhouse garden on a foggy day.
So if I see this correctly, most of you do, indeed, plant fruit and vegetables your sims actually use in the kitchen. Given that's already a base game feature and has been expanded on by lots of other content, I can see that. Next would be alchemy plants (even if you don't go fully in, the first one or two levels already have good elixirs), as those give good benefits. And only one of you mentioned the university life plants in a halfway positive way
One thing nobody mentioned (unless I missed it) are the ITF plants. Okay, they only serve a single purpose - bot-building - and if you don't do that, you don't need them. Also, they are a whole other step of "needy". In my Cronor game, I had a rooftop garden on the house of my stranded time traveler group.
And well, sometimes, you had to scream at the plants. Not that you would ever do that in other situations, right
The community gardens were in the basement of the local science center, which was kind of neat.
The trees used there are store content from the Ren Faire venue. And yes, I MOO’d the biggest tree on the left into the platform, and then cut out holes in the central sections of flooring so the platforms appear to be built around it. The smaller trees were placed around the home later, to give the illusion of support. That’s pretty much my usual technique for building treehouses. I like having planter and soil rug gardens on the platforms so I can keep the fruit trees outside, all the plants can get the benefit of rain, and the deer and horses cannot destroy them. Unless they learn to climb stairs and ladders.
I use a tuning mod for minor pets for the same reasons.
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Your Cronor shots are great! That world is on my need-to-play list, but I haven’t gotten to it yet with all my other Simly projects and stories. But yes, I usually plant the ITF crystal flowers only if I'm playing a bot-builder, although I do like placing those and the huge ITF utopian flowers on fantasy-themed lots. Which reminds me... I also have a tiny community garden with crystal flowers and ITF RH rugs in my fairy world for my bot-building fairy.
Crystal Gardens, with lots of crystals and glowy-glowy things:
I'm afraid I'm not terribly creative and tend to plant whatever seeds my Sim can find around town. I do trees for the various fruits and one of my families is making a fortune with money trees. I use a greenhouse so they can grow year round but do find it annoying that I have to knock out a piece of wall to plant.
Interesting note: recently, I downloaded a bunch of Bea-U-tiful houses for my Sim families who are making good money. Some of them have gorgeous gardens included. One of them had a little fence around it which I thought was cute. Forgot to check that it was locked the next full moon, a nasty zombie came by and wiped out half the garden.
In another save doing a 10-generational challenge, some of my Sims went on vacations and picked up all kinds of grape seeds for wine making. I think I got all but maybe 1 grape seed so that was fun. Their current wine collection is worth a fortune.
I play self-sustaining worlds so gardening is a must for my Sims. There are no picnic table or picnic baskets in my worlds. All restaurants are non-rabbit hole and serve fresh foods daily. Plus, there are public crates which I keep filled with fresh fruits for townie Sims to pick from if they are hungry. Not to mention, the grocery stores (non-rabbit hole) constantly need fresh stock in either raw, canned or cooked form.
Most worlds have their own vegetable, fruit, dairy and fish farms which provide all the food necessary for my town's residents. Items such as tofu and roasts are grown via the omni plant. My gardeners must grow all items to perfect quality as it has the best moodlet benefit.
I do not start my gardens from seeds but rather from the produce itself. All water sprinklers are upgraded to auto water so I don't have to remember to go around to each lot to turn them on. Because each plant has a high yield total before it becomes barren, there is no need to use huge plots of land to create these farms. Thanks to having Sandy's (ATS3) 'chest-like' storage containers on each of the farms; produce can be safely stored until I am back with that family to either can it, store it or, sell it to the various markets.
In addition to growing food for the population, I also have a garden center which sells high quality fertilizers, seeds and plants (deco) to the residents (or science or medical students) who have a garden (or planter box) on their home lot.
I don't use any cheats or shortcut items. Money trees are not allowed to be grown by the population and are only allowed at the Governor's mansion with the money 'grown' used towards the town's upkeep or future development.
Specialty plants such as death flowers and life fruits are maintained by the hospital staff. All ingredients for elixirs are maintained at the private gardens located on the grounds of the science center. Elixirs are sold directly to the hospital (or doctors) or to the town's pharmacy.
So, yeah, my Sims do quite a lot of gardening!