Gardening -- not as a skill worth doing?

[Janna]

My sim is a writer and is a loner, but I send her to some more remote areas, along beaches and such, really for my benefit to learn how to do a variety of things, light interactions with others is just one.   
Anyhow, she has collected, beside some gems and rocks, lots of seeds where some are stated as rare and unusual seeds, so I don't know what they are.
Should I let hr plant them, is it worth it to let her garden, besides my doing it for the fun of it, learning how to do "stuff"?

[Katluvr]

I personally like the gardening skill because at higher levels you can plant some really useful or fun seeds (money trees, deathflower, plasma fruit, flame fruit, life fruit, and omni plant).  I think you need to be at level 7 for all of those items except the omni plant which required your gardener to be level 10 and complete a series of opportunities.

Some advantages of gardening include - making money by selling your produce or harvesting money trees, growing your own fruit and veg for cooking, making ambrosia (requires life fruit), replicating valuable items via the omni plant, gardening skill is helpful to get promotions in the science career, preventing premature death using a deathflower, positive moodlet if your sim loves the outdoors.

I don't usually bother with the unusual and rare seeds as most of the plants that grow from them can be bought at the supermarket and planted instead of seeds.  The special seeds are the ones that I collect and plant as these are the ones that spawn all of the specialty plants I mentioned earlier (except omni plant).

[CSquared2]

I think gardening is the most soothing activity in the game, especially for any sim who enjoys the outdoors.  Almost all my sims, regardless of their traits, have a garden.  A word to the wise, however: don't plant too much at once.  Gardening does take up a fair bit of time daily, even if you invest in automatic sprinklers.  Plant one or two items a day until your sim is spending as much time gardening  as you'd like her to.

[Rainbow Dash]

I'm playing a Gardener Sim at the moment, she's in the Science career so it helps raises her work performance and she can sell the produce for money & the leftovers get used for cooking.  She just hit level 7 & has been planting special seeds, can't wait to see how many are money trees, looking forward to getting the Omni plant opportunties at level 8 too. 

I think gardening is the most soothing activity in the game, especially for any sim who enjoys the outdoors.  Almost all my sims, regardless of their traits, have a garden.  A word to the wise, however: don't plant too much at once.  Gardening does take up a fair bit of time daily, even if you invest in automatic sprinklers.  Plant one or two items a day until your sim is spending as much time gardening  as you'd like her to.

While you do make a good point about gardening being time consuming, you really do need lots of plants early on if you hope to supermax the skill. What I do is have my Sim plant everything she can get her hands on until she completes at least one challenge, then I delete some of the lower quality plants so she doesn't have as much to tend to. I also only have her tend her garden every couple of days or so, that way she still gets time for other things.

[Hosfac]

Should I let hr plant them, is it worth it to let her garden, besides my doing it for the fun of it, learning how to do "stuff"?

Gardening is well worth doing. 

One type of special seeds you can find are money trees, and you harvest money bags which can be cashed in for simoleans.  The best part about money trees is that, once planted, they do not go barren.  That means you can harvest them forever.  Plus, if you fertilize them they will increase in quality as the fertilizer "expires" (meaning you have to fertilize them again).  Once they reach perfect quality, they will spawn another money tree seed!  Each tree will only ever spawn one one seed, but if you have multiple trees planted, each one will generate a seed when it reaches perfect.  You could, quite literally, end up with an entire forest of money trees. 

Another big thing for gardening is the Omni-Plant.  You can feed it objects, and in a couple days you'll be able to harvest several of whatever you fed to it of identical quality.  You can feed it fish (like perfect vampire or deathfish), and even expensive books (except for the books that vanish after you read them, like recipes and song books).  Selling these items can net you a load of cash.  You buy them through the mail, but it's bugged.  However there is a work around for this:  you cue up an action to order the seeds on your mailbox, and before you get there you cancel the action (at least I think that's how it works...someone please correct me if I'm wrong).

This is not to even mention that better quality ingredients mean better quality meals.  Better quality meals give nice buffs.  And meals like Ambrosia and Angel Food Cake require special fruit, which aren't exactly plentiful in every town.

All in all, gardening is one of my favorite skills, and in any multi-generational household I create, there's a gardener in each generation (although I may skip a few generations if I have a lot of produce on hand lol).

Check out our guide to the gardening skill to find out more.

[Rainbow Dash]

Speaking of Money Trees, how much space do you need around the tree for a seed to drop? I forgot, lol. 

[Pam]

Speaking of Money Trees, how much space do you need around the tree for a seed to drop? I forgot, lol. 

None, really.  A seed will find the nearest spot to drop.  I've had rows of money trees with no space between them and I still get the seeds.

Also, I'm moving this over to the Skills board.

[Janna]

Thanks for all the help, I think I will do some gardening, just to see what grows !

Pam, thanks for moving this to the correct area.  I am still finding my way around here; am using the search but sometimes I can't find what I want, probably not wording it the right way.
Somehow missed this panel, or more likey, they have all blended into each other and I forget where I found what. 

[MarianT]

Janna,

Another thing about gardening, especially if you like playing a loner and writer. If you give your sim the Green Thumb trait, he'll be able to talk to his plants, improving their quality faster and meeting his social needs.

[Pam]

Thanks for all the help, I think I will do some gardening, just to see what grows !

Pam, thanks for moving this to the correct area.  I am still finding my way around here; am using the search but sometimes I can't find what I want, probably not wording it the right way.
Somehow missed this panel, or more likey, they have all blended into each other and I forget where I found what.

No worries, Janna.  You'll be fine.  And we have moderators on duty to take care of these things for you. 

[Janna]

It was a potato plant,   The "mysterous" seed that I had.  I planted a grape and tomato.  Both have produced, I'm really suprised they did, as I kept forgetting about them and they would wilt on me. 
But, after she went out and took care of them and seemed to talk to them as she worked, they perked right up.  Tomato produced 4 and I think it had another one last I checked. 
Wonder how she will do in digging up the potatoes 

Thanks for the help, I think I will have all of my sims garden some, it is fun to see what will come up.  Obviously, I am easily amused.   

[mistysun978]

Janna, just a quick easy way to help with the whole gardening thing. You can install sprinkers to water the plants for you, they cover a 5X5 area. If you have a sim with a bit of handyness they can upgrade the sprinklers to auto-water and then the sprinklers will turn on and off every morning on their own for just the right amount of time for the plants.

[Janna]

My sim has a handiness of 7 so I'll set up the sprinklers.  And I now have lime and apple trees, tomato, potato, grape and onion plants.  I am taking the next generation of the fruit/veggies and planting them, disposing of the previous plants, as they seem to be advancing from normal, to nice, and higher up. 
The first time a plant died I was surprised; she cried.  She cries over the plants if I don't have her dispose of them before they can die from being barren. 
It is fun to grow the garden; wonder if I can get the new hubby to take over the garden to help out.

[Katluvr]

I just leave the sprinklers on all the time and don't bother with the upgrade.  It doesn't hurt the plants any but I don't know if there are disadvantages to doing this (higher bills or something like that?)  The one downside of leaving the sprinklers on is that all of my sims want to play in them and they always act as if they can't get to them (foot stamp and yelling) even when they are readily accessible.  It's annoying but after a while you learn to tune it out.