Gardening Guide

[PJSim]

It looks to me like the layout of this guide ended up being slightly different than first planned and a few corrections should be made.

In the Plant List there are some references to the bottom of the list but there's nothing there. Also some things (like the special opportunities) looks like they were supposed to be links but they're not.

[Carl]

Thanks PJ, I corrected it for now. When WA is done I'll update the plant list to be in tabular format with growth times, something that's needed to be done since I did the massive fertilizer guide. The problem with that guide was, that it just got too long to hold people's attention. It's just so much easier to get the info with it broken down into sections like that and there were some leftover mistakes.

Cheers

[Metropolis Man]

So, what's the bottom line on fertilizer, Carl? That area of the game I'm still iffy with. I remember reading your lengthy gardening guide and it said that fertilizer cannot change the quality of the parent plant. But, I'm assuming it can change the quality of the fruit, right? And better quality of fertilizer will have more of a chance of doing this?

[Carl]

Yes, but only by one level. Green thumb will boost the quality of harvestables by one more level, and talking to them can give this yet again.

Fertilizer will also make plants grow faster, but only the plants that are over 4 days. The minimum seems to be 4 days. That's one reason I intend to add growth times to the plant list.

Super green thumb will make the parent plant go up one level higher than the seed would usually produce, so these three combined, along with high gardening skill and perfect plants is a cinch within a couple generations.

[Metropolis Man]

But, if time is of no importance, then fertilizing is a non-issue, right? Will fruit always be better then the parent plant, or can it often be the same quality? If that's the case, then it could take forever to get perfect fruit with no fertilizer.

[Carl]

It can be the same quality I believe, but as your gardening goes up this tends to level out to usually being one level higher than the parent. Fertilizing IS ALWAYS an issue, because the plants will produce harvestables faster -- from 3 days to 2 for example. However given that some plants don't deserve to have a life fruit or vampire fish to fertilize them, such as tomatoes and the like, I suggest saving fertilizer for when you want a perfect plant in particular or fertilizing uncommon plants and above. For a family, a couple perfect plants (of types you need for your favorite dishes) is quite enough to stock the fridge with plenty of good eats.

Low grade fertilizer is generally a waste of time, given all the clicking.

[Metropolis Man]

So, are you saying that the first round of growth stages — seed > sprout > growing > mature > harvest — can actually be shortened with fertilizer? Or are you saying that once a plant bears its first fruit, the 2nd yield of fruit from that plant can be shortened with fertilizer?

[Carl]

Both!

[Teresa]

Not sure if this has been noted yet, I didn't see it anyway.  I was able to trigger the gardening opportunities in a current test game I am running.  Once you turn in the first opportunity (20 excellent) and get the ability to plant eggs and cheese you need to do so immediately.  The day or so before they are ready to harvest I got the opportunity to bring in 10 cheeses.  Completing that gave me the ability to plant steak and burgers so I got them started.  Again a day or two before they were ready to harvest I got the opportunity to bring in 10 steaks.  I am currently waiting for them to be harvested and will see what happens for the next opportunity.  For the record I have never gotten this far in the gardening opportunities before but had read elsewhere that planting in advance of the opportunity is what triggers it.  Looking forward to getting the Omni for the first time

[PJSim]

When WA is done I'll update the plant list to be in tabular format with growth times

That would be great, I always like simple tables and lists so I can look things up when I'm playing, I can never remember everything.

[Pam]

Not sure if this has been noted yet, I didn't see it anyway.  I was able to trigger the gardening opportunities in a current test game I am running.  Once you turn in the first opportunity (20 excellent) and get the ability to plant eggs and cheese you need to do so immediately.  The day or so before they are ready to harvest I got the opportunity to bring in 10 cheeses.  Completing that gave me the ability to plant steak and burgers so I got them started.  Again a day or two before they were ready to harvest I got the opportunity to bring in 10 steaks.  I am currently waiting for them to be harvested and will see what happens for the next opportunity.  For the record I have never gotten this far in the gardening opportunities before but had read elsewhere that planting in advance of the opportunity is what triggers it.  Looking forward to getting the Omni for the first time

It's great that you got the next opportunities that quickly, but that's not a sure thing in the game.  I've had many gardeners reach the highest levels and the opportunities seem to be mostly random.  Sometimes they come quickly and other times they are slow.  I always plant the cheese, egg, steak, and burger plants as soon as I have the availability, but it doesn't trigger the next opportunity.  I often harvest plenty of the produce before I can move to the next ones. 

The Omni is great.  I use it to reproduce Vampire Fish and Death Fish mostly so that my Sim doesn't always have to go fishing.  Be sure to order seeds every chance you get because you can never have enough Omni plants.  And they go barren eventually, even with the best of care.

[PJSim]

I agree, those opportunities are random, even if you get the first one it can take a long time to get the next ones. It must have been beginners luck.

----------------------

Carl, here is something you should check out.

There was an update to my game today so of course I installed that. I have been playing for a little bit and I've noticed a few changes and one major one is to gardening.

When I hover over a plant I can see the quality of the fertilizer used on it, like this: "Strength of fertilizer: Outstanding" (that was vampire fish). And when I click on a plant that needs fertilizer I get the option to "Fertilize garden with best fertilizers". I tried that with a Sim who had things like life fruit, garlic and vampire fish in inventory, he used the life fruit on all plants that needed it.

Pretty cool feature if you have plenty of life fruits that is.

Also when I hover over a vegetable or fish in inventory it says something like: "Fertilizer strength: Great".
Oh and when you open the refrigerator or book shelf there's a Take All button which moves everything to the Sims inventory.

[Metropolis Man]

Oh, what a nice new feature, PJ. I'm guessing that will be something that's rolled into the new expansion and you just happened to get it in an update for the vanilla game. Really cool.

[Pam]

It's in my update, too.  Fertilizing the garden with one click is awesome!!

[Metropolis Man]

Just out of curiosity, Pam, when was this update released? I played a lot yesterday and never even noticed the Update button with the explanation mark at the launcher. I'm certain there wasn't one.