Sunflowers and Sunshine

[Pam]

I read that the sunshine harvested from the sunflower plants (one of the Plants vs. Zombies items) is supposed to make plants grow faster if it's used as fertilizer.  Does anyone know if this is really true?  I'm using it for the first time, and I really don't see anything different.

[MrsFlynn]

Hi Pam,

The sunshine fertilizer is on par with the best/outstanding fertilizer. As far as sunshine helping harvestables grow faster, no it does not.

Hubby and I played with the Sunflowers in our gardening game and the sunshine didn't really help grow faster. But it did help the quality of the harvestables.

Go ahead, play with them!! They're lots of fun to play with.

MrsFlynn

[Zyffyr]

It doesn't help with the growth speed. What it does is ensure that you always have Outstanding fertilizer available without using up your actual harvestables.

Used in conjunction with the Gardening Station it is wonderful. Once each day, pick up 3 Sunshine stick them in the Composter and fire it up. Everything is fertilized AND weeded in almost no time.

[Pam]

Thank you both.  That Gardening Station is what I need to check out.  My Sim doesn't have enough money for it yet, but I'll try it when she does.  If I can find it in the Buy Menu, that is. 

[Wai]

Sunshine with the gardening station is absolutely a quick growth formula.  You can plant a seed one day, use the sunshine/station to fertilize it, then repeat.  You can harvest numerous times per day, if yiou so wish.  Just have 3 sunflowers and use immediately they bloom.  Great if you get the "perfect/exceptional" fruit oportunities to fill.  But a pain if you don't want your sim constanly dirty and exhausted in the garden with no time to do anything else!  I rarely have more than 6 plants in my station because of this.

PS.  You can harvest twice a day by simply using garlic or peppers in the gardening station.

[Ricalynn]

As Wai said, the sunshine itself isn't the key.  It's when you put it in the composter and use the composter.  Using the composter with the sunshine will immediately weed all of your plants and boost them to the next level of their cycle.  So if they are mature, they will become harvestable.  If they're a sprout, they will go to the next growth stage.    If you have enough sunshine you can use the composter on newly planted plants 5 times and be able to harvest them the same day you planted them.

The other good thing about the gardening station is if you have several of them, using just one composter will work for every plant under every gardening station.  So 3 sunshine will weed and fertilize as many plants as you can fit on a lot under however many gardening stations you want.


As a warning though,  you can bug out your plants if you try to boost all day the ones that are newly planted in winter that still show frost.  They will get stuck in harvest state.

[Wai]

Plants don't have to be under the station to benefit.  Plant trees outside, and they will be weeded and fertilized when the plants under the station are treated.  I think it's up to two, possibly three squares (using the grid in build mode) from the station.  This greatly extends the planting area.

By the way, has anyone noticed any significant bebefit from talking to the plants?

[Ricalynn]

Plants don't have to be under the station to benefit.  Plant trees outside, and they will be weeded and fertilized when the plants under the station are treated.  I think it's up to two, possibly three squares (using the grid in build mode) from the station.  This greatly extends the planting area.

By the way, has anyone noticed any significant bebefit from talking to the plants?

My understanding is that talking to the plants increases social and quality of the plants.

[Wai]

Thanks Ricalynn,

I'll test out the quality thing tomorrow.  I need to grow some exceptional steak plants, so I'll set try growing some with "talk to" and see how long they take to become perfect.  Then I'll plant some more and grow them for the same length of time with no "talk to" just to see if they develop more slowly.

Edit, I won't be bothering with doing the second part of the test.  My steak went from nice to perfect so quickly with "talk to" that the effect was obvious.  I planted the steak which was from the shop - nice quality - and used talk and sunshine in the gardening station.  On the next day I harvested 4 outstanding steaks and then they were all perfect.  So, talking to works until the plants are perfect, then there is no point, so long as you keep one perfect sample of each plant for replanting.

[Pam]

I think the gardening station has a lot to do with that, Wai.  I'm not using it (just the sunshine) and I don't have nearly those results.  My Sim does go to the sunshine first when I tell her to fertilize the entire garden with the best fertilizer.  That was good to know because I've lost some great produce in the past because it also happened to be the best quality fertilizer!

[Wai]

It's definately the gardening station which produces the spectacular results.  The "sunshine" though useful, is simply the best fertilizer or a great money spinner!.  Can you talk to plants without the gardening station?

Though some plants are harder to improve than others (lime seems to be particularly slow), for most plants, you can plant them (in the gardening station), fertilize with sunshine then talk to them a couple of times.  Repeat four times.  (This can be done in a few sim hours if you have six sunflowers.  Your first harvest should be all outstanding or better and the second harvest perfect, except for (as far as I have tested) lime.

[cathyknits]

You can talk to plants without the gardening station, but only one at a time. The gardening station lets you talk to them all simultaneously.