Stranded Deep - Farming

[Churchill]

I planted potatoes then in 2 days i took them and then my potatoes don't grow. The question is WHY?

[frillen]

Just to be sure, have you used the Crude hoe on the plant in the farming plot?
The Hoe has 2 functions, crafting a farming plot, and removing a plant from a farming plot, harvest plants with E key.
Harvesting a plant in a farming plot(E key) should start a new 2 day cycle for the plant :)

[lotek_CGN]

Did you water your plot? When you build it it has only water for 12 (unsure, it's been some time I started farming, might be less, might be more) hours right away. The overall water capacity of a plot depends on the type of plot.
If you did not add water chances are your plot has run dry and your taters shriveld to dry straw after your first harvest. You will recognize this by a dry straw standing in the plot. In that case you will have to grab and hold the hoe and hover over the plot until a message like "clear plot" pops up. Do that and you'll be able to replant (requires new plant in hand and hoe in inventory).

Always keep your plants well watered.

The current amount of water in a plot is shown by a thick white outline of the circle that pops up when you hover over the plot - just as with the water still.
The wood plot holds 4 sections each standing for 12 hours of water supply - so after two full days it will run dry and any plant in it will die from draught.

The plank plot holds 8 sections with 12 hours water supply each - so after four full days it will run dry and any plant in it will die from draught.

I dunno the capacity of the corrugated plot - it's in the release notes for 044 stable or previous.

How to water your plots?
Get a container - coconut flask, water skin or water bottle, fill it at the still, go to the plot you want to water with the container in your hand and wait for the message ("water plot" or something like that) to pop up, and then do that. you will add one circle section of water. The coconut flask holds water for one section, the waterskin holds water for three sections. Dunno the capacity of the clay bottle 'cuz I don't have one.

Hey, but what about rain?
If I'm not mistaken in 0.44 stable rainfall will cause farming plots _not_ to _consume_ water for 12 hours (check release notes). In 0.45 experimental rainfall will cause the plots to even _gather_ water (dunno how much, haven't tried yet).

I'd recommend planting ayuga and pipi as well. You might want to add a water still near your plots.
Happy farming.
-- stay alive

p.s.: hoe is not required for harvesting. just pluck your harvest.

[ClayburnGriffin]

> The overall water capacity of a plot depends on the type of plot.

Is that still true? Anyone have the numbers on the corrugated plot?

[ArcBiter]

plants take a long time to grow. I stopped paying attention to how long, but iirc, it's about every 5 days. And yes, make sure to keep them watered.

[terry]

Originally posted by ClayburnGriffin:

> The overall water capacity of a plot depends on the type of plot.

Is that still true? Anyone have the numbers on the corrugated plot?

The corrugated holds 8 water. I may be off by 1 or 2 but i'm pretty sure it's 8

[Lil Puppy]

Farming kinda sucks in this game though. I mean that huge plot and you can only grow 1 single plant in it? In the real world I could plant between 6 and 36 plants in something that size depending on how close you can plant them and what they are.

"Potatoes need room to grow, so plant them about 3 inches deep and 12 inches apart within the rows, leaving about 3 feet of space between the rows." - every potato planting blog on the planet that doesn't use metric numbers ;)

So as the plots are 1x1m square you can plant 6 potatoes in that space. Potatoes don't like to be wet so they shouldn't need much water, the amount of water we use would rot them.

Aloe is a cactus type plant so it likes lots of sunlight and you don't have to water it much (you don't water aloe for the first week after planting...) and water it every 3 weeks but soak it when you do unless the soil is still moist, then leave it alone until it's dry for the first couple inches. These rot really easy when they're wet, we'd kill them with the amount of water we use in-game.

The other plants are pretty much fruits and those are tree plants so it shouldn't need you to ever water them as it rains in these areas frequently enough.

Anyway, farming needs a tutorial step and to be better than it currently is.

[ClayburnGriffin]

It would be nice if running out of water didn't immediately kill them but maybe just paused their growth. Then maybe kill the plant if it doesn't get water after several days of being dry. However, it's the tropics, so there's lots of rain. The fact we have to water farms at all is a bit silly.

[bb 80]

Originally posted by Lil Puppy:

Farming kinda sucks in this game though. I mean that huge plot and you can only grow 1 single plant in it? In the real world I could plant between 6 and 36 plants in something that size depending on how close you can plant them and what they are.

"Potatoes need room to grow, so plant them about 3 inches deep and 12 inches apart within the rows, leaving about 3 feet of space between the rows." - every potato planting blog on the planet that doesn't use metric numbers ;)

So as the plots are 1x1m square you can plant 6 potatoes in that space. Potatoes don't like to be wet so they shouldn't need much water, the amount of water we use would rot them.

Aloe is a cactus type plant so it likes lots of sunlight and you don't have to water it much (you don't water aloe for the first week after planting...) and water it every 3 weeks but soak it when you do unless the soil is still moist, then leave it alone until it's dry for the first couple inches. These rot really easy when they're wet, we'd kill them with the amount of water we use in-game.

The other plants are pretty much fruits and those are tree plants so it shouldn't need you to ever water them as it rains in these areas frequently enough.

Anyway, farming needs a tutorial step and to be better than it currently is.

Are you serious?? You do realize that plants don't grow that fast. In effect you get far more from an in game plot then you could even dream of from a real one.