Farming

Guide based 0.C (Cooper).
Some of the information present here might not apply to future versions.

WARNING: This page may contain spoilers and ruin the joy of adventure. Remember, it is not 'farmville' it is 'growing food during the apocalypse'!

Farming in Cataclysm can be a rewarding way of providing sustenance for your character. As of 0.C, farming has received some solid updates and is now more than capable of providing all the food your character will need - despite the farming system being a work-in-progress (like everything else). Finding an actual farm in-game can be both tricky, and helpful - but is not necessary. If you can find a farm, it's a good thing, as the earth is already dug up for easy planting, and you can often find relevant tools, or vehicles - plus fruits, veggies, grains, herbs and occasionally seeds just sitting out in the fields (assuming they haven't rotted away yet). Otherwise you can just make your own garden in any old vacant lot or field.

The process of farming is pretty easy. It occurs in three steps - Planting, growing (read: waiting), and harvest.

Planting

The first order of business is to find yourself some Seeds. Seeds can be found in Gardening Supply buildings, Home Improvement Superstores, Hardware Stores, in Farms themselves, rarely in Houses, and some can be crafted by the player, using the crafting menu &. They also drop when a grown plant is successfully harvested. To get you started, you can get some early seeds by foraging underbrush in forests (examine underbrush) - wild vegetables or rhubarb you find can be crafted into wild vegetable stems or rhubarb stems (requires Survival 2), which can be planted like seeds. In summer, you can find strawberry or blueberry bushes in open fields that can be harvested for seeds & fruit as well.

To plant seeds, you must examine a dirt mound with seeds in inventory. You can find some dirt mounds at a farm, but be wary of monsters if you're visiting the farm for the first time. Clear the farm first then look around for some tools, if the farm has some farming tools or seeds then you can start right there.

A screen shot of a farm in Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead.

So find a nice set of dirt mounds on your farm to work with or just create your own dirt mounds. You can accomplish this with any digging tool, but the ideal implement by far would be a hoe. If you can't find or craft one, you can use a Shovel, Entrenching Tool or even a simple Digging stick (any tool with Digging of 1 or higher). Make mounds by entering the *Construction menu and choosing Till Soil. This process takes about 30 minutes per mound, a steep price to pay.

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It's much faster to use the hoe, if you can find or build one; simply apply it and have your dirt mound ready in seconds.

A screen shot of using the hoe tool in Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead.

Once you have dirt mounds, you must apply the seeds by examining the chosen mound. This will pop up a menu of seeds in your inventory - just choose the applicable seed and hit enter. Once the seeds are planted, the growing process begins.

One note: You can only plant seeds when the temperature is 50F (10C) or greater. Otherwise you'll get the message, "It is too cold to plant anything now." So planting season begins in Spring, around day 6 or so. You may even find a small window between 2-4PM on day 5 if you really want to get started early.

A screen shot of examining a mound of dirt in Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead.

Your dirt mounds become planted seeds.

A screen shot of a planted seed in Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. For use on the CDDA wiki.

Growing

Now, just sit back and wait for the seeds to sprout. They don't pop up overnight - growth takes place in four stages: planted seeds, seedling, mature plant, and fruiting plant. The time to finish the full growth cycle varies by plant, but generally takes a week or two. There are three speeds at which plants grow: Fast, Medium and Slow.

Fast-growing plants would be oats and zucchini; they each take exactly two days per growth stage, fruiting in 6 total days. You're in luck if you can find these seeds early on - if you get started early in the year, you could potentially squeeze 5 back-to-back harvests into one growing season, providing enough oatmeal for years to come.

Medium-speed plants take three days per stage, fruiting in 9 days - these plants are barley, broccoli, chili pepper, carrot, cucumber, garlic, onion, and tomato.

Slow-growing plants take 4 days per stage, fruiting in 12 days, including: blueberry, blackberry, bee balm, buckwheat, cannabis, canola, cabbage, cranberry, corn, fungal, dandelion, datura, dogbane, lettuce, marloss, morel mushroom, mugwort, mushroom, pumpkin, raspberry, beans, rhubarb, potatoes, strawberry, sugar beet, sunflower, thyme, wheat, wild herbs and wild vegetables.

You will know when they are done by their appearance (bright green #), and their description tag (harvestable plant). Fruited plants will stay harvestable for a good period of time, a week or more - if you do not harvest them within the available span, the plot will go back to seed and begin growth again starting from the seedling stage.

One important thing to note is that the growth a plant experiences won't actually be reflected until you leave the plant's reality bubble and return - a quick trip up and down a set of stairs will do it. So if you think it should be harvest time but nothing looks ready, try leaving and coming back.

Another thing to keep in mind is that your crops are vulnerable at this stage and must be protected. Firstly from monsters - a zombie stumbling through your patch will ruin any planted crops he staggers across. Secondly from cold - be sure to harvest before winter, as the first day of winter will automatically kill off any growing plants and render them into withered plants.

Fertilize your plants - Or don't!

(This step is optional - fertilized seeds will grow much faster but yield much less crop!)

Fertilization is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, your crops will be finished much faster - fast-growing crops (oats and zucchini) will grow to the next phase of growth instantly, while medium-speed crops will take only 5 hours to advance to the next stage. The slowest crops will still take a few days between stages. The drawback is that you will almost certainly harvest the minimum amount possible at harvest time. This is usually one for veggies/fruits and 4 for grains, compared to 10-12 or 48 or so if they are left to grow the full time. You will, however, receive a few seeds, so for purposes of multiplying low seed stores, the fertilizer you spend could be worth it.

Liquid fertilizer can be easily found (it may be on the farm itself, or in a garden supply store, hardware store, etc), but you may have to craft it. It requires a cooking skill of 3 and survival skill of 2. If you've these skills then you can craft it using 1 water or 1 clean water, 2 bone meals, 1 chitin powder and 1 ammonia or 100 lye powder or 50 Saltpeter. Chitin powder can be ground from chunk of chitin using a quern, ammonia is commonly found in gallon jugs in most houses and bone meal can be created from bones using a quern or food processor.

When fertilizing, don't activate the plant food (activating or Eating the substance can prove harmful, don't do it!).

A screen shot of activating fertilizer in Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead.

Instead, examine a seed with some liquid fertilizer in your inventory, just as with planting.

A screen shot of applied fertilizer in Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead.

A screen shot of examining a seed in Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead.

Plants can be fertilized once at every stage of growth (seed, seedling, and mature) for cumulative effect.

Harvest

Once they are ready, examine your plants to harvest them. You'll receive some produce, some seeds, and straw/withered plants. Different types of plants will produce in different quantities. Grains like barley and buckwheat will produce at a high rate, averaging around 46-48 grains per plant and somewhere around 6-12 seeds. Lettuce and carrots produce in high amounts in the 60s and 70s, while other plants like cabbage produce more in the 10-12 veggie range, and more like 18-24 seeds. For a breakdown of average yields, see the seeds page.

Make sure you are ready to eat/preserve any perishables, because the spawned items will start to go to rot as soon as they are harvested. Congratulations! You've just farmed your first homegrown produce.

Powered Farming

In 0.D (Danny) you can find and build farm equipment that plows, seeds, and harvests respectively. As of yet, there is no fertilizer attachment for vehicles and the chemical sprayer doesn't accept liquid fertilizer. Details to follow.

Animal Farming

As of the most recent experimentals, you can also farm various animals such as cows. More details to follow.

A screen shot of a tractor vehicle in Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead.