Quality of Garden Plants

[Hosfac]

I agree that there is a lot of randomness in regards to quality, but it is not strictly random.  Having the "Green Thumb" weights the "range of randomness" to a slightly higher range.  It's not very much and you really have to garden a lot to even notice at all.  Simmers who only garden casually would likely never even notice the difference, and for them these would likely be two trait slots that would be better used for something else.  And once you've got planting materials that are Perfect, there's not much point in having these traits at all.

The LTR "Super Green Thumb" helps a little bit more, however.  You'll end up with perfect plants, which will produce perfect produce, a good deal sooner than you will without it.  Especially with the more stubborn plants like Life Fruit.  

It's worth noting that everything I've discussed in this thread doesn't include talking to the plants to increase their quality.  This is something that I don't often do, since my gardener sims tend to have jobs or are in school, and sometimes have children.  It's not uncommon for them to be the household cooks, as well.  Thus, they normally have other responsibilities that they need to attend to, and just don't have the time to do this.  Also, my gardens tend to be somewhat large, so talking to each and every plant to raise it's quality just isn't practical for them.  But during the rare moments when they have nothing to do, I do send them to talk to the plants that take longer to grow since it takes a lot longer for these plants to reach perfect quality.

I've also seen no direct affect from traits on the quality of money trees.

[Phyre]

In previous games I saw a lot of this randomness as well, however, with my current gardener I am not.

She has the Green Thumb trait, as well as the Super Green Fingers LTR. When she plants a seed she always gets a 1 level bonus and sometimes even a 2 level bonus to it's quality. She also gets a 1 level bonus to the harvestables (on top of this planting bonus), and again, sometimes even 2 (I think that also comes from using fertilizer).

I tend to "speed garden" to an all perfect plants garden using these traits and rewards simultanously. That means that I immediatly replant at least 1 harvestable right after I harvest it and dispose of the old plant. Between the combination of this planting and harvesting bonus you can reach perfect plants with just 1 or 2 (3 if unlucky) replants. Once I have perfect plants I harvest perfect harvestables and expand my garden.

I rarely see this randomness reducing the quality of my harvestables.

[Zyffyr]

I tend to "speed garden" to an all perfect plants using these traits and rewards simultanously. That means that I immediatly replant at least 1 harvestable right after I harvest it and dispose of the old plant. Between the combination of this plant and harvest bonus you can reach perfect plants with just 1 or 2 (3 if unlucky) replants. Once I have perfect plants I harvest perfect harvestables and expand my garden.

I do much the same with one small difference - I leave the old plant until the  new one produces its first batch, so I am still receiving produce to sell/cook with.

[Phyre]

I do much the same with one small difference - I leave the old plant until the  new one produces its first batch, so I am still receiving produce to sell/cook with.

I only do that when I really want/need that money. A big garden takes a lot of work hours every day, if my Sim has other things to do (and they usually do - because only gardening every day bores me), I prefer to keep my garden to a minimum.

[Hosfac]

I rarely see this randomness reducing the quality of my harvestables.

Perhaps I misinterpreted this part, but the harvestables will always be as good or better than the plan they come from.

I tend to "speed garden" to an all perfect plants garden using these traits and rewards simultanously. That means that I immediatly replant at least 1 harvestable right after I harvest it and dispose of the old plant. Between the combination of this planting and harvesting bonus you can reach perfect plants with just 1 or 2 (3 if unlucky) replants. Once I have perfect plants I harvest perfect harvestables and expand my garden.

That's how I typically do it, too.  The only real time I maintain a large garden is when I want to max the skill quickly, and in these cases the gardener doesn't have any other responsibilities until that's done.  They wake up in the morning, work all their needs to max, and I click "Tend Garden" and let them have at it.  When they shower, I check harvest qualities to see if anything needs to be replanted.

Likewise, there are only certain things I fertilize, unless I have a massive amount of fish.  These are typically the slow growing rare and special plants.  Watermelon and those two rare grape varieties from France are exceptionally slow, and Life Fruit are typically very stubborn when it comes to increasing the quality of the plant.  It normally takes me at least 3 replantings to get perfect quality out of those.  I'm finding Plasma Fruit to be similar to Life Fruit in quality increase as well, although I rarely have a need to grow those since non-vampires can't consume them at all.