Let's talk gardening!

Wow, and I thought I was obsessed with gardening! I love the whole "top floor is a greenhouse" thing...that is freaking brilliant. I would love to see some pictures if you are willing to share.

My sim household is on a relatively small lot so I resorted to a small outdoor garden and pots on the patio for out of season plants. Every season I rotated what was outside vs. what was on the patio to keep things growing year round until I got everything up to perfect.

I also planted a row of tulips and crocus along the front of the house right in front of a decorative (i.e. non-gardening) flower bed, and spliced all of the other flowers onto them (only 1 splice per plant though) to add more color.

I am far too lazy at the moment in my game to work on fishing, so have settled for growfruit and pomegranate for fertilizer with the help of a bee box. Took a while, but I did finally get to all perfect. Only plants I'm missing now are some of the herbs (chamomile and 1 or 2 others). I have the splices for adding them to existing plants, just haven't done it yet.

No need to go through all that trouble for frogs for wolf eels, btw. The best fish are all equally good as fertilizer, none is better than the other, so it is easier just to catch salmon using whatever bait you have readily available. I was ambitious enough to look into the fish-as-fertilizer thing...just never started actually doing it. My sims had twins and just had no time since then. lol

@calaprfy, the beehive provides a (albeit small) fertilizer effect to all plants within range. This stacks with regular fertilizer, so it's worth having them if you garden a lot. The range of it is 5 tiles in all directions.

Patchy is useful when you start out gardening especially for a couple of reasons:

• You can get seeds out of his pockets every few hours (think every 4 or so, never really tracked). I got some particularly rare seeds very early in my game this way, including a death flower on day 2.
  
• He can give you the Focused moodlet by asking for gardening tips, which helps gardening skill gain.
  
• He animates and does stuff around your lot, including helping with the gardening (he'll plant seeds you have set in pots, weed, water, etc.)
  

I still have Patchy around even though my main sim has gardening capped and all the plants at perfect....he's a family friend at this point. Plus, he'll be useful once the founder (who is the gardener) passes from old age. The kids probably won't work on gardening at all until he's gone.

One question for you now. Where can you buy fish in Brindleton Bay? That's a great tip!

what are the best plants for making money? before the big gardening overhaul, the strawberry+ blackberry combo was my favorite (a strawberry plant with a blackberry graft) but now is not working so well, in fact, my dragonfruit plant is the most valuable of the ones I have. I know that I could graft the strawberry with an UFO, but since I live in san myshuno, the rocket is a no-go for me.

"LOW;c-16853633" wrote:

Money Tree

Unfortunately, I don't have the necessary EPs (I think it's seasons) : :(

Drangonfruit is a solid next choice for money generation then, @metalfenix_Raf. It is the most profit-generating crop I keep in my current Sim houeshold's garden (don't like growing money trees because you can't also eat them). One of my favorite things to do is to graft dragonfruit on to any other plant that I don't already have grafted with other stuff...so every plant makes decent profit as well as giving me whatever produce I may also be growing for usage.

UFO plant (and other of the extra terrestrial plants) are the only one that has a higher profit rate, I believe...and is just wierd.

thanks for the tips, @Stormkeep . I'll keep that in mind. Time to replace some of those strawberry+blackberry plants for some strawberry+dragonfruit plants.

"metalfenix_Raf;c-16853548" wrote:
what are the best plants for making money? before the big gardening overhaul, the strawberry+ blackberry combo was my favorite (a strawberry plant with a blackberry graft) but now is not working so well, in fact, my dragonfruit plant is the most valuable of the ones I have. I know that I could graft the strawberry with an UFO, but since I live in san myshuno, the rocket is a no-go for me.

You don't need a rocket when living in an apartment, just use the one that spawns at Geekcon, that's what I do. :) Blackberries and Dragonfruit were my go-to profit making produce for my households with a garden. But now, blackberries aren't worth anywhere near what they were before the gardening patch. Makes me so sad. Just a tip, besides getting Dragonfruit from splicing or the Spice Festival with CL, you can also reliably fish up Dragonfruit from the fishing pier in Magnolia Promenade.

Another thing I've found is that plants in season grown outside in the ground produce more harvestables per plant than those grown in planters inside or outside. You need to wait a bit longer for them to spawn everyday though than just after 5 a.m. for greenhouse produce. If you wait until around 7-8 a.m. they'll produce anywhere from 6-8 per plant instead of the usual 3 or less sometimes when grown indoors out-of-season. It works best to rotate as noted by @Stormkeep. :)

I love gardening in TS4! I did stop having any gardens in my households for awhile though because of the exceedingly low success rate (1% o.O) for grafted plants to produce the rare harvestables. In particular Bird of Paradise and Orchids. I have NEVER been able to get one from grafting. But after this last patch, they fixed it so plants are ready to harvest again at festivals and I finally got a Bird of Paradise! Now I'm just working on getting the elusive Orchid in my game.

Happy Simming! <3

thanx @Karababy52 , I'll be in the lookout on early morning to sell my harvestables. It's a shame that, living in an apartment, I have to resort to planters inside. And the funny thing is, san myshuno actually have a house, with a garden (the salt house) ...but one cannot plant anything there. It drives me nuts lol.

You're welcome @metalfenix_Raf ! :) Yeah, having a garden is tough in apartments unless you're renting one with a balcony. I've been thinking about moving my couple to the building the Karaoke Legends live in just to take advantage of the balcony for my plants. I only have three in pots, but still takes up valuable space in a tiny apartment. Right now they live across from Raj & Geeta in the Spice District.

Why can't you plant anything on the Old Salt House lot? Isn't that just a normal lot like in any other world? o.O

"calaprfy;c-16853262" wrote:
@Stormkeep There are stalls (like the ones in City Living and Seasons) scattered around Brindleton Bay. Some offer pet supplies, some offer fish (the catch of today, they call it).

I know that there is one of each near the premade bar, near a rather colourful playground.

Also, dragonfruit (strawberry spliced with snapdragon, or can be found at the spice festival if you have City Living) are an excellent fertiliser.

I've been using dragonfruit as fertiliser for my plants that have already attained perfection. (I don't know if it makes a difference in the number and frequency of harvestables, but why not?) I'm currently working on a growfruit tree, however. Carl is a bit contradictory regarding growfruit - in one place, he states that it's the only 'high' quality fertilser that isn't fish, and in another, he says that it's no better than any other expensive plant.