Tip for quickly maxing gardening skill (with cheat)

[ZacSz]

For those of you (us) that like to occasionally cheat our way through, I find the quickest way to max out the gardening skill is to first have your Sim read volume one of the gardening book to bring the skill to level three. Then use buy debug to set up a nice, full garden for your Sim. If you choose to use testingcheatsenabled and make all happy/needs static, you can have your sim first fertilize, then "tend garden" and so long as the garden is big enough (it doesn't even have to be that big), this takes quite some time. By the time your sim is done, he or she should be pretty close to mastering the gardening skill and have an inventory full of fruits and veggies to sell or use in meals. Even if you don't want to use the make all happy/needs static cheat and would rather have your sim tend the garden in chunks rather than one long bout, a big garden is more than enough to raise the skill a bunch of levels without needing to read any more and at least that way you'll have a lovely harvest too. This might be kind of obvious to most of you, but I thought I could at least impart my two cents!

[Metropolis Man]

It's actually not too difficult to get to lvl 7 gardening by the time a Sim hits the sack on day 1. And this is without cheats. It does take some chops, but once you understand that planting and fertilizing higher level items nets you more experience you can fall into a nice rhythm. Maxing gardening is entirely possible by the 3rd or 4th day — again with no cheats.

[Alexandria_]

It's actually not too difficult to get to lvl 7 gardening by the time a Sim hits the sack on day 1. And this is without cheats. It does take some chops, but once you understand that planting and fertilizing higher level items nets you more experience you can fall into a nice rhythm. Maxing gardening is entirely possible by the 3rd or 4th day — again with no cheats.

I've got to agree with this. I used to always avoid gardening because I thought it would take so long to max. But on my first go of gardening, I was at level 8 by day 3.

[Hysting]

My sim got gardening maxed out in 2 days. Wanna know the funny thing? He didnt plant a single thing. Granted, I DID use the moodlet manager but that's beside the point.

[samoht04]

Maxing is the easy thing, it's the getting a profit I find tough within the time constraints of the day.

[sdinger70]

Maxing is the easy thing, it's the getting a profit I find tough within the time constraints of the day.

I agree with this statement. It's fairly difficult to turn a profit until the money trees start coming in.

[Jowkoul]

It's pretty easy to master gardening, but finding the necessary seeds is rather difficult...  This is when a little cheat, named buydebug on might come in handy. Before a week I always used to find seeds out in the world! But this cheat makes it easier as, like, please tell me, how could you get all the types of grapes without traveling to Champs Les Sims?  That's when buydebug helped me!  I got all of them, plus took a photo of them for the photography challenge! The only 3 plants not available through this cheat are the cheese plant, eggplant, beef steak plant and the omni plant, which can be accessed only via completing opportunities, you'll get at levels 8, 9 and 10 of the gardening skill occasionally. Still, gardening can be mastered with no cheating if you read all the volumes of the gardening skill book, found in the Sunset Valley's library (but not in Twinbrook's stupid library, which only has sci-fi trash!! GRRR) 

[Saltypaws]

The omni plant is in buydebug.  Only reason I know this, is because I was tired of waiting for opportunities and decided to see if the plant was there and it was, so I got like three of them and of course then I started getting my opportunities after that and got to the point of getting my seeds through the mail.

If you work at it, like everyone said, it does not take long at all to max out gardening and the benefits are so worth it, especially with money trees.  So far in my dynasty, I am raking in over 70,000 simeleons every time I harvest and you can harvest, twice, sometimes three times a week.   

[Metropolis Man]

...and you can harvest, twice, sometimes three times a week.   

Definitely more than twice. As far as I know Money Trees can be harvested every other day.

[samoht04]

I can harvest Money Trees every otherday.

[Saltypaws]

Thanks, I wasn't sure, since I don't harvest like I probably should.  It seems like you get so busy doing other things, then it hits me, gosh, I need to harvest.  So, that is a tidy profit with the money trees and it so worth it in the long run.

[Metropolis Man]

Thanks, I wasn't sure, since I don't harvest like I probably should.

In the Man Dynasty, I only have Recipe harvest. Depending on what museum art pieces are needed (Recipes does them all) it could be a week before he gets to the Money Trees.

[sdinger70]

I love gardening, but it's gotten to the point where I normally use buydebug as well to get money trees. Far too easy for me to lose interest if I have to do too much boring stuff to get to the fun part, and while I don't mind collecting seeds and gems and such, I lose interest in collecting seeds - especially if I don't get any trees in the first two or three collecting trips. But that's the curse of having ADD! I think I'd rather have the mummy curse, or lycanthropy, even.

but not in Twinbrook's stupid library, which only has sci-fi trash!! GRRR

I don't like this either - I always edit Twinbrook and Bridgeport to add book corrals to the libraries so the skill books are there.

[Schipperke]

In the Man Dynasty, I only have Recipe harvest. Depending on what museum art pieces are needed (Recipes does them all) it could be a week before he gets to the Money Trees.

I was under the impression that Money Trees produced bills if they weren't harvested regularly.  Are you saying that doesn't happen?  It's really ok to just garden once a week?

[Metropolis Man]

I was under the impression that Money Trees produced bills if they weren't harvested regularly.  Are you saying that doesn't happen?  It's really ok to just garden once a week?

Well, the household has the No Bills Forever reward, so I'm not sure. I've never received a bill from a Money Tree. Then again, I'm not certain if I've ever waited a full week to harvest. I might have been exaggerating. The longest stretch between harvests might be more like 4 days.