Farming

**Farming** is a game mechanic in *My Time at Sandrock* that allows the player to grow crops in their Workshop and then use the products for crafting and cooking.

Farming becomes available after the player receives the recipe for crafting a Basic Planting Kit from Zeke during *The Grass is Greener*. Using the planting kit in the workshop allows the player to access the farming interface.

## Basics

### Unlocking the Planting Mode

Using the planting kit in the workshop for the first time enables the planting mode. The player can enter the planting mode again anytime even if they remove the planting kit from their inventory.

* The first planting kit the player obtains is the Basic Planting Kit, the recipe for which is received during *The Grass is Greener*. It unlocks the planting mode and allows to grow all available crops but only works with one square area at a time.
* Its upgraded version is the Intermediate Planting Kit obtained during *One Small Step for Sandrockers*. Unlike the basic kit, the intermediate kit allows to work with a larger square area at a time (up to 4x4 squares). The increased area applies to all actions, allowing the player to plant, fertilize, or water several crops at once.

### Using the Planting Mode

In the planting mode, the player has the following options available:

⁠⁠Planting Mode commands

## Soil

Soil can be upgraded by repeatedly planting crops at the same location. Higher level soil squares can keep more Fertilizer, and the maximum level, Biocrust, allows to plant crops without using Straw.

Harvesting crops will accumulate experience for underlying soil squares. A soil square gets upgraded when it gains enough experience. Different crops provides different Exp values, which are shown in the tables below. If a crop takes more than one square, the Exp is evenly distributed to all its squares. Rose Willow provides significantly more Exp than other crops. Growing and harvesting 5 Rose Willows in a row can fully upgrade a soil square, which takes 20 days without any knowledge bonuses.

Once a soil square is upgraded to max level, it can be "removed" from ground to get a Biocrust item. Biocrust can be placed elsewhere in the Workshop, effectively allowing the player to move a fully upgraded square, although remaining Water and Fertilizer in that square will disappear.

Soil Levels
 Biocrust | 1,000 | 5

## Crops

### Seasons and growth

While crops can be planted and will grow regardless of the current season, they grow faster during some seasons and slower during the other. The growth speed varies from crop to crop.

In the tables below, the crops with no seasonal differences listed grow with the same speed during any season.

The *Planting Knowledge* in the Workshop knowledge tree can speed up the crop growth by 10% regardless of the season.

### One harvest

All crops from the table below drop nothing when uprooted during the seed stage and one Food Scraps and one Plant Fiber when uprooted after they sprout and before they are ready to harvest.

### Multiple harvests

Unlike one harvest crops, the trees grown from the seeds listed below are not destroyed after the initial harvest and will continue to produce fruit until the player roots them out.

Trees also have more growth stages than single harvest crops do: the first stage while the tree matures and the second stage when it brings fruit.