Winter/Spring Crop Question

[Amariel]

On some of my saves, my farm has gotten so big that I just can't get all the crops planted and watered before the first day of spring ends. My crops end up a day behind. I don't want to use a time mod if I don't have to, so I'm wondering about something. If I get some cheap seeds, say wheat seeds, and plant them on the last day of winter, will the plots stay tilled overnight until the first day of spring? I'm not expecting the crops to grow, I just want to know if it will keep the plots tilled so I at least won't have to spend time tilling all my fields. Has anyone tried this?

[Amariel]

No, what bothers me is that my crops are a day off. Either cause I got them planted but not watered, or I could only get half of them planted and watered. Even with iridium hoe and watering can I couldn't get all 480 crops planted and watered on the first day. This also includes putting down fertilizer. I used coffee for a speed boost but it didn't help much. I know wheat seeds won't GROW in winter, but I know I can PLANT them. I'm just wondering if the tilled/watered patches will stay that way until day 1 spring. Then all I have to do is get rid of the wheat seeds and plant new ones. No tilling or watering required. Does that make sense?

[Ilucie]

Yes it works, I also do it. The crops will be "withered" on the first day of the new season and you can just slice it off. PLus everything is watered of coruse

[Amariel]

Yah, I just wasn't sure if it would work on the last day of winter with non-winter crops. I also just got another idea. I can use a rain totem on the last day of winter to make it rain on the first day of spring. Then I at least wouldn't have to water them. :P Thanks!

[Ilucie]

You could craft winter seeds, thought it may take a while.

I dont know if a rain totem actually works. I play with SMAPI and have cheat tool (which I use after playing thousands of new games :P) and even that tool wasnt able to force rain on the first day of a new season... maybe a rain totem wont work too

[NotThatHarkness]

Originally posted by Amariel:

Yah, I just wasn't sure if it would work on the last day of winter with non-winter crops. I also just got another idea. I can use a rain totem on the last day of winter to make it rain on the first day of spring. Then I at least wouldn't have to water them. :P Thanks!

I tried the rain totem on a different season transition (Spring to Summer I think) and it didn't work. I mentioned the idea here on this forum and someone else responded saying others had tried it when the game first came out and it didn't work over season transitions back then either.

In one of my games I had over 800 plants growing per season, which is impossible to plant on day one. I didn't even try to get them planted on the first day of any season. I was growing 5-6 different crops and planted all of each crop on the same day though. My strategy was to use a few spreadsheets I found online to figure out which crops absolutely had to go in on day 1 to get the maximum harvests (with deluxe speed-gro) and which crops I could put off to day 2 or even day 3. I used the rain totem on day 1 and almost always had rain on day 2 which made it much easier to day 2 crops planted. For most crops you have a 2+ day buffer to get the crops in and not lose a harvest. I put off all those until day 2. On day 1 I concentrated on clearing the fields of debris, buying seeds, and getting only the crops that had to be in by day 1 planted and watered. That was around 350 plants in most seasons. The rest I planted on day 2.

I never tried the cheap crop over the transition trick. I haven't been able to plant out of season crops outside the greenhouse though. I'll be surprised if the game lets you plant wheat in winter. It will be nice if it does. But at some point you might want to rethink what you are planting and figure out whether they absolutely have to go in on day one. I get wanting to have all plants of a certain crop planted on the same day. But different crops have different growth rates. It's possible take advantage of that and spread out the work over 2 or more days and not lose any harvests....unless you are only planting 1 crop. If that's the case then getting 480 done in on day 1 is going to be tough. Maybe just clear the land on day 1, buy the seeds, craft the rain totem and plant everything on day 2?