How to Compost

[Horth]

I have compost items (peat) and the wiki says I can use compost items via gardening on Red Mushrooms and other items. However, the gardening option does not appear on the peat.

What step am I missing?

[Drathy]

The wiki may not be accurate/up-to-date for 2.x unfortunately. You should be definately seeing a "Garden" option in the item's menu for Fertile Soil and Compost.

[Horth]

I see it for compost, but not for peat which is a compost item.

[Drathy]

Peat is just part of the compost group, not compost itself. Spoiled meat, vegetation, and other organic materials are also in this category/grouping.

[Horth]

I finally figured out how to make compost. Is its only purpose used to speed up plant growth? I thought I could heal up damaged plants and also cause them to spread - be fertile.

[Tigax]

You need dirt and two compost items, use it to speed up growth or fertilize so it will spread. A must have for new games.

[Ouroboros]

Take two compost items (peat, etc) and a Soil to make an item called Compost. Take the Compost item and you should be able to take a Garden option -- in addition to speeding up maturation, it will allow you to make stagnant mature plants fertile so they can spread

[DeadStack]

2019.01 - There is no garden option, no way to apply compost to soil, tilled soil or plant.

[Matthew Cline]

Steps:

1. Make compost.
   
2. Combine compost, ash and bone meal into fertilizer.
   
3. Combine soil item (dug from soil) and fertilizer into fertile soil.
   
4. Right click on fertile soil item to place it down onto ground, covering the terrain you're facing.

It really does need to be made easier, or at least for there to be more in-game explanations.

[theaeg]

I don't think it needs to be easier. The power of having a self-spreading plant is epic in a survival game. If you don't have the resources to make fertile soil, you can just plop the plant in regular soil and farm statically until you have the ingredients to make fertile. I have found many times that I end up fencing an area off anyhow and use very little fertile soil.

Fruit plants don't need it, because they yield seeds with the fruit.
Veg (lettuice, medical plants, carrots, potato, onion) dont *need* it because you can harvest the seeds and keep the plant growing. Just get one mother plant to only make seeds and then immediately plant the new seeds.
Veg (corn) doesn't need it because they yield two seeds per harvest. So your cornstalk population grows fast.

The only plants that I really use fertile soil for are wheat and cotton. Wheat doesn't need it, I just get impatient for the resources and want "vast amber waves of grain." The cotton does need fertile soil. By gathering the cotton, you get seeds and cotton, but destroy the plant***. Having it auto spread allows you to have a decent yield of cotton and only need to "prune it back" to keep your cotton-colony alive.

I actually think that farming could be made a bit more difficult. It is too easy to get 3 seeds and then never need food (or water if you like cukes) ever again.

Lovely system. I like how it works, but I think some detail could be added to complicate it and make it more volitile.



***Now that I type this, I wonder if I could just gather once or twice from the plant and keep it growing...hmmmmmmm.

[Matthew Cline]

Originally posted by theaeg:

I don't think it needs to be easier.

I meant "easier" in the sense that the the user interface to do it should require less steps and be more intuitive.

[Horth]

It might be a good idea to make/add to the tutorial quest line stepping you through the stages to make and use compost.