Gardening - what do you plant?

I plant only the ingredient most used in meal, like tomato onion and bellpepper and variety of grapes from france, I rarely plant trees as they dont really good aesthetic wise.

I always do outdoor gardening separated by rail fence, havent tried indoor though.

The seasonal dormancy from cold temperatures tends to bug plants outside to permanently be unharvestable without nraas mods to fix them, so I tend to avoid it altogether, unless the sim im playing is specifically a gardener type. Science goes wonderfully with gardening though, you can analyse samples and clone them, resulting in Perfect plants to plant, bypassing a lot of plant generations.

Fairies also typically make gardening easy.

Never do what I did, and have a Mummy that crafts nectar, you'll spend all day in the garden due to how slow mummies are :D

I almost always have my sims garden, growing the most common plants for meals like izecson said. I also use the swiftgro gardening station. Mostly I use plumbots with the gardening chip though, as they're the easiest. Science sims have to do it themselves, though.

I can't believe I've played this game since 2009 and have never even looked into the functions of that tablet - I didn't even know about the tabcasts!

I used to go all in with gardening, trying to get one of each plant, including the ones from WA, but that always ended up in a mess. I'm never able to organize the garden and everything is haphazardly placed, so of course it's inefficient. Maybe one day I'll have a green thumb sim who puts some actual effort in and uses the greenhouse/Swiftgro thing. At one point I made a community garden with all of the plants so sims could collect what they needed for their own progression, but that's been a while.

I'm currently not really paying attention to gardens because I hate all the inventory space they use.

I lost patience with my sim's garden at one point and deleted it all. I then added fake corn stalks just to make it look like there was actual work being done in the garden :D
https://64.media.tumblr.com/53201f8e3bfc04a7e0642cfd4e53ad63/58313c281017a1cd-86/s500x750/f0eae3b4387a71f5fa3642e06c3657a4759277d3.jpg

But since then I've deleted the fake corn stalks and had her start planting again. She uses the fruits she grows (mostly berries such as raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, etc. and fruits from the two fruit trees) from home for canning and anything extra is sold at the local grocery for extra money.
https://64.media.tumblr.com/2c57b056801984df43d8f5f67e6d22eb/ec0136931ab4b39c-73/s500x750/25ea54cb534a3260f199aaa4f18221a04de7d3f7.jpg

@izecson Trees last a bit longer, but they make it difficult to see anything below them, which is another drawback I didn't mention.
Also, if you want to try indoors: basements are your best bet. It's a bit counterintuitive, as, in real life, the electricity bills would be too high, except for illicit activities, but in the game it works just fine. Needs ITF grass rugs though.

@Devalaous Ugh, yes, that dormancy issue is a pain. The plants get stuck on "harvest", but the interaction isn't there. I had that issue even with NRaas mods. I had to laugh at your mummy story :lol: . Yes, that sounds like it would be an issue.

@KevinL5275 Oh yes, plumbots are the best gardeners of those I tried. They also do it automatically, at least as long as you avoid giving them sentience chips. I'm not sure what the lesson here is: sentience corrupts :smiley: ?

@thebriamon The store is full of official cheats and shortcuts. Buggy cheats and shortcuts, but they are there :lol: . I can see the inventory issue. You spend a lot of time in there when you garden. Try the seed box mod though to at least get a handle on keeping the best seeds/fruit without selling or eating them.

@Amphora Beautiful pictures. I have yet to use the cannery station. I heard it also needs a mod to make it work properly :lol: .

I never know what to plant when it comes to gardening.

All my sims learn gardening as soon as they become teens. Since I started using Retuner to stop autonomous playing with the sprinkler, most of my sims have the Loves the Outdoors trait and will immediately roll wishes to learn gardening on aging up. I start by having them water the plants before school which is much faster than harvesting and less draining on the hygiene bar. Because my sim kids go to Scouts they get a head start on the gardening skill and reach level 3 on watering their first plant. Once they unlock the gardening skill from Scouts they can also fertilize before school - another fast task which increases skill level quickly.

Sims that I play until death all master gardening, cooking and fishing in their lifetime because I want my sims to eat perfect quality meals for the best moodlet. These days my sims usually start out with a house that already has a few plants in the garden because I don't play a long lifespan and I want them eating good meals right out of the gate! Although the house comes with a small garden, my sims start out by planting the basics - lettuce (autumn salad), apples and grapes (pancakes), tomatoes (ratatouille and spaghetti). As their cooking skill increases alongside the gardening skill they add the other plants for meal preparation.

My sims mostly grow base game plants. They only grow WA grapes if a sim in the household makes nectar but I do that less and less these days. I don't see the point in the herbs and coffee that come with University so rarely bother with them. Occasionally my sims will find seeds (sims that garden often roll wishes to find seeds) for plants from other EPs/Store sets and I might have them add them to the garden if they seem useful. The berries that come with Bohemian Garden are good for a change from apple pancakes :D Since adding Supernatural recently I have added mushrooms and chili to the garden because I like the look of the recipes that come with the EP.

My sims only grow life fruit and death flowers when they roll the wish to do so once they have reached the levels required. I don't allow my sims to hold death flowers or eat life fruit because I don't want them prolonging their lives when I have a new generation waiting in the wings. I usually only have one sim per generation accept the opportunity chain to grow eggs/cheese, then steak/patties.


Edit to add: I don't have Seasons installed so gardening is done outdoors.

I plant everything, sometimes, and sometimes I only plant what my sims need for cooking. It depends on my plans for the sims in question. But I like gardening in real life, so more often than not, my sims do have gardens. I bought SN mainly for the plants and the recipes. I also have the
Bohemian Garden set, with even more new plants.

I plant them in rows, with no spaces between the plants in the rows, and two or three spaces between the rows. I arrange them by type and size of plant. So I have rows of mushrooms, small fruit plants, small vegetable plants, tall fruits, tall vegetables, short herb plants, tall herb plants, alchemy herbs, and coffee beans, with trees in a separate plot, spaced farther apart. Special seeds get planted with whatever category they fit in. So life fruit goes with tall fruits, flame fruit goes with small fruits, and eggs, cheese, meats, and omni plants go with tall vegetables or in rows of their own. If I'm not planting everything, any short rows will get combined with some other categories, like short fruits in the front, and tall ones in the back, for example.

I don't have any pictures of my current sim's garden itself, and it's early spring in her game right now, so she doesn't have a new garden planted yet, but here are two of her jogging past her garden.

https://i.imgur.com/0Qnb1tq.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/hlcHqrJ.jpg

Here is her garden in France: It's mainly for making nectar, so it's mostly fruit, especially the French grapes, but she also has a few vegetables, eggs, cheese, and meats, to use for cooking while she's there. It's arranged differently than I usually do. I usually have long rows running front to back, but because of it being in France, and thus her time being limited, I planted the slower growing plants under the Swift Grow station, and the faster growing plants with just a sprinkler.

https://i.imgur.com/F7JobZN.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/6YmNkux.jpg

I play a lot of gardeners; there’s at least one in every generation and usually one in most of my played households. Gardening is one of my favorite things to do.

I plant indoors, outdoors, in greenhouses or basements, with or without planters or soil rugs—whichever works best with the space/resources the household has and what I want them to plant.

Greenhouse with planters and a mix of fruit and veg, plus a random money tree:



Alchemy plants in indoor planters, fruit trees outside and small, edible plants on soil rugs in the greenhouse:



Fruit harvestables for nectar-making in a sub-basement MOO'd to the floor:



Sometimes I plant anything and everything, but for the most part I avoid planting money trees, plasma fruit, herbs, coffee beans and crystal flowers on my home lot unless I need the extra cash (red berry coffee beans are a lucrative crop), or if I have vampires, alchemists or bot-builders in the family. I would like to use the herbs more often for their effects, but I usually forget. :/

Generally, I plant all fruits, vegetables, and the edible SN plants for recipes, since favorite and perfect meals are important to my families. All of my green thumb gardeners also do the opportunities for the dairy, meat and omni plants. If those opportunities don’t show up in a timely manner on their own, I will use MC to force them. My Sims read books, watch TV or listen to tabcasts to improve some skills, but never for gardening.

Over the years, I've built up and saved various perfect community garden lots that contain all or almost all available plants, which I sometimes place in my edited towns. Cheaty, cheaty me. :p It’s easy to max gardening and complete some skill challenges just by harvesting a huge community garden a few times.

Heritage Community Gardens:



Legacy Gardens:



The Sleeping Gardens:



Avalon Orchard & Vineyard:



I use the harvestables from community gardens as seed starters on my home lots, which works especially well for my nectar-makers. Community gardens are also good for “homeless” Sims to collect food for their daily meals or for science Sims to analyze for samples. Not having to water or fertilize plants is a nice time-saver too. And I always use a consignment store to sell my extra produce (and OFC nectar).





When I have saves where I want ambrosia, I plant larger groupings of life fruit (I do this for nectar making too).



I also only catch a few deathfish to start and then just breed more in fish tanks. :lol:





I occasionally use the Swift Grow and the tractor on my large farming lots, but I tend to use just the tractor more often. My farmer Sims take the cold/dormant seasons off and use that time for other things. By then they have WA chests or CC chest-likes filled with surplus. I love using the canning station to create food rations in fall and winter, or I may use that time to start making nectars or focus on other skills and hobbies.