a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
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Farming carrots
Plant carrots in rows of eight and always leave the last three to go to seed. Here's the math:
It takes four minutes to grow a plot of carrots from seed and fourteen minutes to grow a plot of carrot seeds from seed. So in the time it takes to produce five seeds, you can consume (harvest) three and a half carrot seeds. If we round down to allow time for planting, watering and harvesting, we can call it three.
So carrots need to be harvested/left to seed in a ratio of harvest:seed 5:3.
Farming wheat
Ripe wheat produces an unlimited number of seeds, so all that needs to be done is for the stock of wheat seeds to be replenished before the wheat is harvested.
Farming milkweed
The only rule is only pick milkweed when it is fruiting, but also ALWAYS pick milkweed when it is fruiting, even if you throw the stalk in the trash. This prevents a noob from killing it.
Farming berries
Don't.
Turns out berry farming is actually necesary and also viable. Berries are necessary for producing compost (renewable soil) and for feeding sheep. The main objection to farming berries was that they use up the soil, but that is only true when the bush is left to die. The most important rule for farming berries is to never pick the last berry unless you can immediately water the bush.
Last edited by Uncle Gus (2018-03-06 02:43:39)
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Regarding wheat: Don't you lose fertility after harvesting? Unless I'm mistaken, even if you remember to gather all the wheat seeds before harvesting, one reap = one basket of fertile soil gone forever. I hope I'm missing something, but this seems to make wheat farming frighteningly expensive on the land.
Last edited by Tebe (2018-03-03 22:40:16)
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Oh really? That would indeed be very expensive.
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I'm very curious to try a x8 carrot plot this way. 3 separated plots for flowers (where's a big red NO TRESPASSING sign when you need one?).
I've seen quite a few farms with absolutely tons of carrot plots and they become unwieldy and require so much water, and are really too big for a single farmer to manage.
I came across a beautiful fenced-in carrot farm once... It was empty, abandoned, ghostly. But quite lovely. I hope to come across it again and attempt an efficient farm.
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The most important thing is to farm by whole plots, not leaving one carrot in a plot. That just takes way too long and it means you only get four carrots every fourteen minutes from a plot.
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Regarding wheat: Don't you lose fertility after harvesting? Unless I'm mistaken, even if you remember to gather all the wheat seeds before harvesting, one reap = one basket of fertile soil gone forever. I hope I'm missing something, but this seems to make wheat farming frighteningly expensive on the land.
Yeah, I wouldn't recommend farming wheat unless you also have compost going.
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Agreed on the single carrot debacle... Tried it for a while, became horrified looking around at a mostly-empty carrot farm with measly single untouchable carrots and mostly unused plots.
I'm also trying to ABH - always be harvesting. As long as there are plantable seeds and available water, I should be adding carrots to the stores - but then I run out of baskets. A good farm needs some serious storage. Can wooden boxes accomplish this?
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Farming berries
Don't.
Love this one.
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After harvesting wheat you do indeed lose the soil. I was in a village where they were making compost piles to replant wheat.
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The carrots should be 4:3 because if you make it 5:3 each seed reserve would go completely into the harvest and you end up with none to replant the seed.
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Right you are. That's an easier ratio. And in any case, this is only necessary when there are no wild carrots nearby. Which is why they should never be dug up.
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-> I wish berries regrew, but just weren't as good as carrots.
Perhaps as a simpler construct, or, adapted somehow to fit food emergencies. They could grow faster but have less food, or, slower but have a higher "maximum on the vine".
Right now, they're basically only used by stupid people (me!) who didn't know they don't regrow until growing a field of them and someone going "dear God, no!"--I literally spent an entire lifetime... wasted. I thought it would be my crowning achievement only to realize it was all in vein.
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If you are growing wheat, you can and may need to grow berries in order to make compost. If you're using berries for compost, it negates the fact that they use up a soil, as they can actually become soil producers if you make compost with reeds, which are renewable.
Edit: Also, domestic berries do regrow, but only after they have been emptied and then watered again.
Last edited by asterlea (2018-03-05 02:33:33)
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So they are in theory renewable, but if you leave them unwatered for too long, they will die.
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About the "single carrot on a plot" thing, it's usable as long as you really have excessive amount of soil but not enough seed; further, by having that eye-sore carrot sitting there doing nothing, it's a valid signal for semi-pro players to realize what is going on.
However, when your farming really starts kicking in and you finally managed to save seeds, "single carrot on a plot" is really not efficient.
What I realize though, is people gotta be taught about picking seed from wild carrots before digging.
Last edited by Twinsen (2018-03-05 04:15:14)
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Or just never digging wild carrots.
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Or just never digging wild carrots.
Digging carrot is a Don't Starve signature and people got too used to it; so it's better to teach them about picking seed before digging it.
Further, I could be wrong but I hardly find those wild carrots regrow seeds, so it's alright to dig wild carrots, but only if you are really desperate.
Last edited by Twinsen (2018-03-05 04:31:52)
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They definitely regrow, so they are the best source of seeds. Depending on your farm itself is risky.
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So they are in theory renewable, but if you leave them unwatered for too long, they will die.
I'm not sure that's true IF they have berries still on them. If all berries are gone they will die if not watered, but looking at the crafting recipes it doesn't look like a "domestic" bush ever turns into a "languishing" bush unless all berries are removed, and only "languishing" become "dry" and then "dead" over time. The recipes are a little cryptic though, so it's possible I'm missing something, but I have tried watering one with berries and it did not let me.
Of course, either way, guaranteeing that randos aren't going to come pick them clean and not water is impossible, so they will likely die if someone isn't looking after them, but there's still a chance to recover if you notice someone do it, unlike milkweed. And if we keep spreading the idea of not eating from the farm unless you're a farmer that will help.
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Updated berry farming section.
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If you have enough ponds near you this is as hardcore as you could go in terms of 3:4 seeds to carrots, which each plot feeding 2 people and having 1 extra carrots, so 4 plots will give 5 people and so on.
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That would take a lot of water! To sustain a 3:4 carrot farm, you need one water every 80 seconds. Ponds refill at once every five minutes, so you need 3.75 ponds per 3:4 carrot farm.
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