Gardening questions

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PootieTang

Terrarian
What's the preferred gardening method for someone new to gardening?

Clay pots are nice by u can plant anything in them without special soils or biomes but take so much longer to harvest.

Substrate gardening is nice because it's so quick and easy to harvest but it's kind of a pain putting all the different substrates down for the different ingredients.

Also how long does it take for a full cycle for the seed to grow into a mature plant?

Do you think the most efficient and easiest gardens would be underground? Above ground in the air? Somewhere else?

Thanks in advance!
 
I would say that the best farms are underground. If you have a hellevator, branch off from that a few blocks down from your house. Just experiment, and you'll find a method that works for you. As for growing time, I have no idea. Try the wiki for that.
 
Growing time? Never measured because it varies plant by plant. These are semi-informed impressions.

By the time you're done planting a row of Blinkroot Seeds, you can often begin harvesting mature, flowering plants. With a row of 50 or so it's difficult to harvest and replant fast enough to keep the row flower-free.

Fireblossom and Deathweed seem to take a lot longer to mature, other herbs in between.
 
I always use clay pots. The convenience of having them all together is better for me than having to lay down different soils. At first it's dayblooms, moonglows, blinkroots. Then add in deathweeds after getting seeds during a blood moon. And then I only harvest the deathweeds in the clay pots during blood moons.

I seem to get enough waterleaf and shiverthorn on their own that I don't need to plant them. I get them naturally.

For those that are on console - you know how you can harvest and plant a seed at the same time by placing a seed on top of a bloomed plant? Saves so much time. Can you do that on PC? I haven't figured out any way to do this. I have to harvest the bloom, then go back and place the seed. I wish to find a way to do it in one step like on console.
 
Unit One said:
For those that are on console - you know how you can harvest and plant a seed at the same time by placing a seed on top of a bloomed plant? Saves so much time. Can you do that on PC?
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I think it works on either potted or unpotted plants, but not on both. Try unpotted and see whether it works. I'd try it myself but I've no gardens on my iPad or Android worlds and I don't want to start T on the PC just now.
 
When you get to a certain point late in the game, clay pots just aren't worth the hassle. Mass plant on soil and use dart traps to harvest them all at once. It'll take longer to build initially but it'll be worth it in the end. Just don't go swinging your sword around in your garden and you'll be good.
 
darkflames9 said:
When you get to a certain point late in the game, clay pots just aren't worth the hassle. Mass plant on soil and use dart traps to harvest them all at once. It'll take longer to build initially but it'll be worth it in the end. Just don't go swinging your sword around in your garden and you'll be good.
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I like the dart trap execution for harvesting.

Which reminded me of what I do with glowing mushrooms. I use actuator blocks and turn off all the blocks. You can walk through them. They will still sprout glowing mushrooms. As soon as they sprout they'll pop off and fall to the ground. So imagine rows and tows of actuated glowing mushroom blocks. You don't have to do anything - every time you walk that way you'll be picking them up. I've done this on console. Haven't tried on PC yet.
 
I use clay pots but the other way is just as good, it's a personal preference really. The clay pots are damn expensive to make though, I seem to mine a buttload of clay to make them.

Plants have different growth times and some different requirements for them to drop seeds. Waterleaf will only drop seeds when it rains, for example.

As for best place, the best place would be conveniently located near your base I reckon. With the madness of inventory management in this game I like to keep everything close so I don't have to walk 500 miles to drop a few seeds in a chest or collect herbs from pots.
 
Unit One said:
For those that are on console - you know how you can harvest and plant a seed at the same time by placing a seed on top of a bloomed plant? Saves so much time. Can you do that on PC?
Click to expand...
You can do that on soil but, on PC at least, potted plants can only be harvested with a pickaxe. Which is good and bad, since it makes it easy to avoid destroying them by mistake, but it prevents the use of clever reaping systems.
 
ManaUser said:
You can do that on soil but, on PC at least, potted plants can only be harvested with a pickaxe. Which is good and bad, since it makes it easy to avoid destroying them by mistake, but it prevents the use of clever reaping systems.
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Thanks for this. At least I can now stop trying different things to harvest and plant from the same click. Not sure I want to switch all my pots to soil though. It looks so messy that way.
 
The "clay pots are expensive" argument really has no merits because you can make as many worlds as you damn well please. That said, finding and mining the clay does take a certain amount of time, but it's not that bad. I say do pots until you have enough dart traps to do a soil farm. Also, if you have enough space and don't mind walking large distances (or if you just have a bunch of teleporters), you can make artificial biomes, which allow for the plants to grow naturally without needing to wait for them to bloom.
 
I never understood why people need huge farms anyway. Do you keep potions running all the time or something? I could probably make greater use of them myself, but still, as far as the herbs I never felt there was a shortage with just a couple dozen pots. It's always the other ingredients that are the limiting factor, like fish and enemy drops.
 
ManaUser said:
I never understood why people need huge farms anyway. Do you keep potions running all the time or something? I could probably make greater use of them myself, but still, as far as the herbs I never felt there was a shortage with just a couple dozen pots. It's always the other ingredients that are the limiting factor, like fish and enemy drops.
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Shine potions are delicious like candy. I pop them 24/7.

And what I lack in aim and dodging skills I make up for with potions. :nursegrin:
 
ManaUser said:
I never understood why people need huge farms anyway. Do you keep potions running all the time or something? I could probably make greater use of them myself, but still, as far as the herbs I never felt there was a shortage with just a couple dozen pots. It's always the other ingredients that are the limiting factor, like fish and enemy drops.
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It's a matter of how often you want to revisit the garden I guess. The larger it is, the less frequently you have to farm it.
 
I prefer soil planting - harvesting is faster, and with good mouse maneuver I can plant two seeds with one click. I need lots of shine/night owl potions, so I mostly harvest dayblooms. Blinkroots or shiverthorns never seem to end for me, and when I need fireblossoms, I visit underworld.
I think the time for plants to grow is somewhat random, should be between 1-2 days, and blooming occurs always when the plant is grown and conditions are met.
 
Sulejman said:
I prefer soil planting [...] with good mouse maneuver I can plant two seeds with one click.
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That's actually possible with pots too (provided they're next to eachother of course). I always wondered why it worked that way. You'd think it would either be one-per-click or an unlimited number.
 
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I have fallen in love with the clay pot method. The soil method is cool from a technical perspective because of how the traps are set up, but it doesn't feel efficient at all. You constantly destroy plants that haven't fully grown yet. The clay pot offer more precision and order, and you don't have to worry about potentially wasting anything.
 
Soil planting is very efficient. I just wait until everything grows up before going for harvest.
I like my farms stretching for 100 tiles.
 
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