Farming and soil

Farming

Crops need water to grow. How big the harvest is depends on the soil (see below). Hover a farm tile to see what the soil looks like, the crop's progress, any symptoms, and whether it's watered.

The Aether Lily

The flower this world was named for. While it grows it needs all three, all the time:

• Water. It drinks: every 40 s of growth the tile dries out. Re-water it, or put it next to a well.
• Soil health 80+ (get_soil()): every nutrient at 48 or more and pH 6-7. Compost helps with all three.
• Company: at least 3 different crops on the 4 tiles next to it (get_neighbors()).

If something's missing it stops growing and starts wilting (hover it to see what it needs and how long it has). A happy lily recovers. After a minute of neglect it wilts away and the bulb is lost. Picked healthy, it gives its bulb back, so one bulb can become a field.

Soil chemistry

Every tile has Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K), each 0-100, and a pH. Your farm has a natural soil map: some patches are more sour, some low in a nutrient. Darker soil is healthier.

• The scarcest nutrient sets the harvest (30% to 120% of normal). A pH outside the crop's range cuts it further. The field never dies, it just gives less.
• Harvests take nutrients out. Corn takes a lot; beans put nitrogen back.
• Empty soil slowly rests: nitrogen creeps back to its natural level.
• Symptoms tell you what's wrong before you can test: yellowing leaves = low N, purple-tinged = low P, brown scorched edges = low K, stunted and pale = pH off. Poncho comments on small harvests too.

Fixing the soil (unlocked as you go)

Soil testing (Horticulture perks, P)

• Soil Science (tier 1): take_sample() puts a soil core from the tile under Poncho in his sample case (12 max; he says how full it is). Open the bag (I): the Sample case line under your items lists

the tiles, and Send to lab sends them (2 potatoes per sample). About 45 s later the exact pH/N/P/K is on each sampled tile. Hover it, read it with get_lab(), or press M for the soil map (cycles pH, N, P, K; untested tiles are dark).

• Nutrient Balancing (tier 2): Phosphate and Potash in the shop.
• Field Probe (tier 3): probe() reads pH/N/P/K live, no lab. Hover and the soil map show live values.
• Precision Spreading (tier 4, 2 ranks): compost and amendments work 25% better per rank.

A good program for this: walk the field taking samples, send them, then walk it again and spread() exactly what each tile's get_lab() says it's missing.

Trees

The orchard opens with Grandpa's Notebook, chapter 10 "The Orchard", a side chapter that starts once chapter 5 is done and runs alongside the rest. The Olive Sapling is in the shop from the start; the other saplings, the bushes, flowers, new crops and the machines unlock as you work through it.

Trees are planted once and kept. Buy a sapling (Olive, Rubber Tree, Maple) at Mendwell's General Store and plant() it on grass: no tilling, no watering, no fertilizer.

• A tree grows in a few minutes (sapling, young, grown). After that it stays full-grown, and its product ripens over and over: olives every 2 minutes, a cup of latex every 2 minutes, a bucket of sap every 3 minutes. You can see it on the tree.
• Poncho rolls right under a tree, so harvest() standing on it takes the product. The tree stays.
• is_ripe() and get_ripeness() tell you about the product once the tree is grown.
• clear(direction) from the next tile fells a grown tree for wood (a few hits; more power, fewer hits), and now and then gives the sapling back. A young tree just comes up, and you get its sapling back.
• Ironwood is rare: the Loop Warden sometimes leaves a sapling, and everyone who helps beat the Great Warden gets one. It takes about 30 minutes to grow and gives nothing to pick; fell it for Ironwood Logs, the hardest timber there is.

An orchard row, tapped every lap:

for i in range(5):
    if is_ripe():
        harvest()
    move(East)
for i in range(5):
    move(West)

Bushes and flowers

Bushes and flowers stay too. Plant them on tilled soil like a crop; once grown (or in bloom) they stay, and their product comes again and again. They drink: water them once for each lot (a well or sprinkler does it for you). A dry plant just waits; nothing wilts.

• Bees and flowers: a beehive makes harvests within 3 tiles bigger. Every flower in bloom within its reach (roses, lavender, marigolds, indigo, sunflowers) makes the bonus bigger, up to double with 8.
• Calm: standing on or next to a flower in bloom calms Poncho a little every few seconds, up to Content. Lavender works best. A garden is a good place to rest him before the ruins.

More crops

• Sunflower (60 s): 3 sunflower seeds. Plant one again; the rest are for pressing into oil (soon).
• Cotton (75 s): 2 cotton, for cloth (soon).
• Pumpkin (2 min): one big pumpkin that sells for 14. A heavy feeder.

A flower bed that waters itself as it picks:

for i in range(4):
    if is_ripe():
        harvest()
    if not is_watered():
        water()
    move(East)
for i in range(4):
    move(West)

Selling

Crops sell at Mendwell's Market (take the Waystone), at prices that change every town day; other goods (oil, syrup, cloth...) sell at the General Store next to it. A Silo at home can sell the crops in it straight away. Potatoes are the money, so they can't be sold.

Each harvest gives 3 XP.