Anyone else REALLY hate gardening?

[BlackjackGabbiani]

It takes forever to grow anything, and then you have to stop and shower and that takes even longer...

And everyone who requests gardening stuff from you wants it in less than a week but things just don't grow that fast, and it's just overall a massive pain.

[HarVee]

I for one love gardening, I just hate the fact that plants can wilt and die in like 2 Sim days.

[lisfyre]

I never do gardening opportunities until after my sim gets level 10 gardening.

[PunkyBreester]

I hate that it takes so much time and attention. I don't think you should have to be out there for hours pulling weeds EVERY day. If the plants themselves don't grow that fast, why do the weeds?! >:/

I also hate that its repetitive. But then, I hate anything in the game that's repetitive. Which is 90% of the game. I don't know why I still play it sometimes -__-;

Ahem, anyway, I just wish that the different plants were a little more useful besides just different recipes/nectar making. Maybe eating each raw would give you different moodlets or have other effects? Maybe something more involved with the actual gardening, such as planting in certain patterns or having certain plants together would cause different outcomes? I'm one of those people that enjoys the little "mini-games" that crop up, but I don't like HOW they're implemented. Each challenge is so similar to the next, completely unrelated thing, that there is no fun in it and not really event a point for me. For example, the process of maxing a skill versus maxing your career, versus completing a collection, etc etc... it all feels the same to me. Even the WA adventure challenges get old FAST.

[SpookyOkyBatGirl]

I hate gardening unless I want my Sim to completely focus on being a farmer/gardener or something. Otherwise it takes too much time and energy for my other Sims.

[charmedqueen]

I like gardening... It kinda reminds me of real life sometimes.
Weeds pop up almost everyday, and when I helped with my grandma's garden, I found myself out there for hours, mostly just pulling weeds.
It takes them a while to grow, but it's nice when they finally do. As for opportunities, I never do them. I find them annoying.

[Sorelligirls]

I'm one of those odd ones that likes gardening as well - but I do agree that it's a pain in the ass if you have a BIG garden. The one in Riverview at the Carpenter-Rhodes farm is WAY too big. My Sims kicked them out (we're mean like that) and moved in - I cut the garden down to a third of the size. My current Sims have exactly four garden plants - and Willow (science career) can usually tend the garden in less than an hour. Having a sprinkler (especially if you can make it auto-water) is a lifesaver as well.

[babele44]

In the beginning all my Sims were gardeners. Now they're garden cheaters. Thanks to World Adventures all my new games now have an empty lot with a treasure chest that contains several perfect samples of every plant and some 10 perfect Omniplant seeds, and thanks to AwesomeMod my Sims can plant these on community lots. Of course I could also place a perfect garden lot in the bin but, hey, that would be too much cheating, wouldn't it?
I began the planting on community lots especially because I was so annoyed at how fast the Plasma bush died and how little it yielded but a perfect plasma fruit is the best dish a vampire can have (except for hunting prey), so my solution was to make it public so-to-speak.
It's quite convenient, by the way. Whenever my Sims are in need of produce they head for the nearest community garden and harvest just what they want without worrying about weeding and watering.

[goteampink]

I enjoy gardening on the game...in real life it takes wayyyy longer!

[EmotedLlama]

I enjoy gardening on the game...in real life it takes wayyyy longer!

Though considering that one sim day is roughly equatable to one human year...

[kewpie]

What I usually do is start a world with one sim that will garden up a huge garden with tons of stuff. Then I go play another family and they just harvest all of the gardener's stuff. I also found that it goes really fast if you have the whole family helping. If I want a sim to max out gardening, I will make him garden all day by himself but once he maxes out, I'll let the plants I don't need die off and then the whole family will get up and help the guy garden and it only takes an hour or two of that.

[zigersimmer]

If you don't like it, don't engage your active sims in it. I tried fishing because I had a sim with the angler trait; decided that I don't enjoy having my sim fish, so I replaced the trait with something more to my taste and now he doesn't go fishing any more.

[cameranutz2]

As a general rule, I don't add the trait to my Sims unless I plan to have them garden for a living. I also add the angler trait so they always have decent fertilizer.

My gardens are rarely huge, just enough to make money and keep the next generation planted and of course take the goods to market.

Then I fill the Sim's house with the little whatnots they get for being such a great gardener and proficient fisherman! :lol:

[ElementMK]

I'm not a fan of gardening, but at least it's simplified from TS2: Seasons. That was a serious point-and-click grind. However, I'd love to have high-tech planters like the hydroponic planter career reward from TS2. Just sow your seeds and collect the perfect crops in a few days.

[kayls42]

Honestly, I love gardening. I have a Sim right now, who has a large garden ( at least 3 of every plant ) and they're all Perfect quality.
It takes a ton of work, and it does drag on and on, but I love the outcome. It's a great way to make money.

[varpunen]

I do love gardening, as well, and almost everyone of my sims have had a garden. I also don't mind the weeding, the fertilizing and the watering (automatic sprinklers do it) but... the one thing that truly annoyes me is that the fruits trees die. I mean, come on, I understand that smaller plants die quite often but fruits trees shouldn't die, not if the sim takes care of them. I'm a gardner myself by profession and I do have several fruit trees in my yard but, darn, if I would have to go and plant new ones every now and then...:faceslap:

[eskie227]

I'm not a fan of gardening, but at least it's simplified from TS2: Seasons. That was a serious point-and-click grind. However, I'd love to have high-tech planters like the hydroponic planter career reward from TS2. Just sow your seeds and collect the perfect crops in a few days.

Then you need this http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=393965

[SuicidiaParasidia]

i find gardening useful.

there are a few tips/tricks you can use to make it less painstaking.
for one, you can buy a sprinkler and upgrade it to auto-water. i find that watering each and every plant is most time consuming, but with auto-water sprinklers you can pretty much just weed/harvest and go. plus your plants dont die nearly as quickly.

for another, if you have Pets, and a unicorn, you can use the unicorn to speed up a plant's growth. each "bless fauna" jumps the plant to its next growth stage...for example, if its newly planted, itll pop out into a sprout. if its fully grown, itll harvest.

you can also get perfect plants relatively quickly. start by planting 1 of the type of plant(s) you want...fertilize it with other plants or fish (or horse fertilizer, with pets). after its harvest, the fruit should be a grade or two higher than what you originally planted (even higher if your character has a green thumb and/or the aspiration reward that boosts the plants' quality). then just dispose of the old plant and plant one of the fruit. wash, rinse, repeat, until you have your perfect plant.

between auto-sprinklers, unicorns, and speed planting...gardening isnt difficult and doesnt take a lot of effort to maintain. i can ignore my plants until im ready to tend them, using these techniques.

[J. M. Pescado]

There is ONE trick to making gardening less obnoxious: Get AwesomeMod, and put on Supreme Commander -> Garden. You will no longer have to babysit the entire process.

[Tzigone]

I really like gardening. Thought I preferred that in TS2, the weeds and plants didn't all grow up at the same time each day (allowed for more staggering of gardening). I also have never had a plant die in TS3 - just go barren. I didn't even know they could die without fertilizing them with the death plant.

[TheTripWasInfragreen]

Gardening is actually one of my favorite TS3 skills. It's better when you have a large household with a few individuals that can help with the process, though.

It's also much better when you have World Adventures.

[crocobaura]

It takes forever to grow anything, and then you have to stop and shower and that takes even longer...



You could put a floor hyginetor somewhere in the garden. Everytime a sim walks over it, they get clean.

[Ninja5701]

Yea now that you mention it, i only really garden for my natural cook Sim, and he only garden for the fresh produce, but it's too time consuming, he'll spend like 8 hours tending is garden or fishing for fertilizers. Just gardening alone can take up your whole Sim day.

[RedCherries]

You could also unlock the genie - He has a clean sim power.

I don't like gardening. At all. It was better when you could hire a gardener in the earlier games - but then again there was no skill for it.

The only time my sims will ever have the GT trait is when I'm playing a legacy and the child grows up with it. ._.

It takes on average 3 sim days to grow a basic plant (I think.) but it takes longer than that to harvest, collect seeds and/or plant them, AND tending to the garden- it is such a pain. D:

[lewisb40]

I do have my sims gardening, only for active households with the frugal, gardening, natural cook, and Renaissance Sim LTW. I do try my best with gardening sims, trying to get all the seeds and still don't understand how to get the omni plant growing or fed, but most other situations just have a half-ass garden that satisfy their wishes. Also I do find the gardening skill requires too much of the sim time, I prefer they were also socializing and seeing the town. So I did turn to Twoftmama's Plantastic Gardening mod to help reduce some of the time spent. Adds fun to the motive, which should be there if a sim wants to garden, right?

I must say I will resort to mods when I find something in the game too outrageous.

EDIT: wanted to add that it does help the frugal sim to have a good garden. They make good money selling the produce they don't need.

[J. M. Pescado]

You could put a floor hyginetor somewhere in the garden. Everytime a sim walks over it, they get clean.Or you could combine with the Slob trait, so then they don't care if they're clean or not.

[chellekat7]

I like gardening with my farming sims who are self employed. But for the busy sims with full time jobs, I sometimes used this mod especially if they live on a large lot and have a big garden: http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=459967. Unfortunately, I don't think it's been updated but it might be an option again in the future.

[acid_fairy]

I hate gardening, and I hate fishing. I've tried both, but my GAWD they bore me to tears.

[Belzader]

For thoose that feel that tending the garden takes to much of the sims time try this:
http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=358951

Also for thoose that don't know there is a little trick to avoid the need to water the plants, place sprinklers (they're base game and found under the outdoor stuff) in the garden, they have the option to be upgraded to autowater and VOILA, no more booring watering the plants.

[rian90]

I use Twallan's mod and set it to allow autonomous gardening and push for it so my sims that have gardens will actually do the work while I am not paying attention. I also set the ones who make a living from gardening with traits to allow them to do it faster and enjoy it more.

Otherwise, I would find it boring as well. I don't use cheats though other than to push them to garden because otherwise the challenge is gone for me. I also don't care how perfect the veggies are, just so they can make enough money to live on or grow grapes/fruits for wine. I wish they had flower gardening though since it would be fun to have our sims win prizes for the best gardenia or whatever. :)

[Belzader]

I wish they had flower gardening though since it would be fun to have our sims win prizes for the best gardenia or whatever. :)
You know, there's suggestion forum on the official Sims3 site, you could make one for that.
Who knows they might like the idea and add to an expansion.

[Miko09]

With Auto Sprinklers and the right traits, Gardening only takes a couple of hours. If your sim is not serious about it, then just keep a small amount of plants to tend to.

[iheartcowcapoos]

i made my person a super gardener and the whole front yard was grown plants. it would literally take the girl 17 sim hours to water, fertilize, and weed (essentially "tend") all of the plants. i like the gardening a lot, but not when it consumes my sim's entire life. then, a few hours later, ALL OF THE WEEDS COME BACK AND THE PLANTS WILT AND YOU HAVE TO DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN! weed faster! even adding the sprinkler doesn't really shorten the process.. =P there's my 2 cents about it

[nikkiforest99]

I HAET gardening. For me, it's about as interesting as watching grass grow, pun intended :rofl:

[Zokugai]

The only thing I like gardening for is planting ONE apple tree outside the front door as a quick food source if I don't want to bother making breakfast in the morning. Keeping ~10 apples (or whatever) in your sim's inventory = invaluable.



for another, if you have Pets, and a unicorn, you can use the unicorn to speed up a plant's growth. each "bless fauna" jumps the plant to its next growth stage...for example, if its newly planted, itll pop out into a sprout. if its fully grown, itll harvest.
Do you mean bless flora? Fauna refers to animals.

[minimogut]

Yes. I made a teen and child family. This was before I had ambitions, so the kid couldn't really do anything and she was too busy with homework anyways. The teen had a job after school, so she stayed up very late cleaning and doing homework, oftentimes not finishing it before she was too tired. Then she has to get up early and take a shower, take care of the plants, and then go take a shower again (plants were an extra source of income). She eventually stopped going to school.

Needless to say I deleted the game, and haven't made a gardener since.

[kewpie]

This is something that I think TS3 does way better than TS2. I HATED gardening in TS2 and I only did it once to get eggplant juice and then decided it was less hassle for the sims to skill for their points. In TS3, you just tell them to tend their garden, fertilize and you're good to go except for occasionally cleaning out dead plants and replanting.

Maybe you folk are making your gardens too big. Except for nectar making, there is no reason to have a garden with more than 1 of each plant. And really, your sims can get by with only about 8 - 10 plants for all their needs. There's no reason that they need a bunch of the plants around when they are only good for one recipe that you almost never make. And I found that sims don't really really need the bait except on the more rare fish - so you can skip lots of the gardening if you only garden specifically for those hard to find fish.

I think in order to find gardening satisfying, you have to think about why you want the sim to garden. If it's just to max out gardening for a career, perhaps skill books are the way to go. Plan ahead how many plants you actually need and don't go past that. Don't be afraid to dig up plants that you have enough fruit on it to last several generations. ALWAYS get the auto water on your sprinklers unless your garden is really tiny.

The only time I have huge gardens is in the "Nothing is Free" challenge and that's just to get the sim who is trying to max gardening to get the grocery store open is trying to max as soon as possible and there are no skill books available to him. He's got nothing to do except garden all day in the game, and once his gardening is done, he doesn't have any way of gaining skill points he needs so I just made a MASSIVE garden (48 seeds all gathered from collecting and two slots for the auto water sprinkler) for him to work on all day. Once he maxed out gardening, I removed all the plants he didn't need and left his family with a reasonably sized garden. The only reason he gets more seeds to garden is to identify special seeds he hasn't found yet that would be good additions to his garden. (Oh I wish there was a mod to identify mystery seeds)


Edited to add -- heed the words of @Pescado. Slob trait is almost mandatory for gardeners (and inventors) They can garden until they almost pee their pants -- heck -- when I think about it, they are slobs -- they can pee their pants and keep on going -- they're slobs! Another odd trait for massive gardening only -- no sense of humor. Two extra hours of having a blast doing something really boring.

[morphius1]

I am glad that I found this thread. I was about to open a new one about gardening.
Gardening is okay...I don't hate it. I just want to be able to garden/tend to flowers and shrubs, too ...and be able to sell them like fruits and veggies...open up your own flower/plant shop. And to be able to plant them anywhere on your lot, instead of having to place them in build/buy. Like in TS2, we had to tend to the shrubbery, or it would over grow(?). I wish we could have this with TS3.
It's not over yet. Maybe they will let us have this feature in EP/SP 50.

[itsamariokart]

I completely agree, I hate it. My Sim is in the Science career -_____- I just make her read gardening books.

[zigersimmer]

I'm inspired to create a gardening family in Riverview. The whole damfambly will garden. No going off to work, no afterschool activities. Everyone will garden.

[Simsdestroyer]

I don't like gardening either. I've tried to do a country family that makes a living off the land, but it's really tedious and boring. I don't like fishing either. Since those two go hand in hand, I never get further than being able to plant some garlic. I like the ambition careers where there's action (well as much action we can get with the sims lol), like the architect career, or the ghost buster career. The only "freestyle" career I really like is the band career and the writing career with Twallan's "book" mod.

[Alliteration]

I once tried to do a game set on the frontier and tried to make it as historically accurate as possible (according to this US History textbook, anyway). The family was sustenance farmers with a small garden only designed to feed themselves. It was still incredibly hard to get them both happy, give them time to do anything else and grow food at the same time. Never again.

[minimogut]

I completely agree, I hate it. My Sim is in the Science career -_____- I just make her read gardening books.

The problem with me is that I'm too lazy to make her do even that. I just level her skill up to 10 points with treeag's book of skills :faceslap:

[rian90]

I like the ambition careers where there's action (well as much action we can get with the sims lol), like the architect career, or the ghost buster career. The only "freestyle" career I really like is the band career and the writing career with Twallan's "book" mod.

Like the firefighter career? Putting out fires, over and over again...very dull. Honestly, I find most things in Sims 3 dull, mostly because there is no reward for doing well other than a trophy to put on your shelf. I would prefer something more meaningful like a successful business or a little booth where you can sell your vegetables. At least then the hard work would be worth something. Selling everything at the grocery store feels like cheating and cuts out interaction with a customer.

Sadly, it is responses like these above that made EA take out a lot of the challenge from previous Sims 3 series. I guess maybe they were right....Sim players want easy stuff or rpg elements in the game.

[crocobaura]

I would prefer something more meaningful like a successful business or a little booth where you can sell your vegetables. At least then the hard work would be worth something. Selling everything at the grocery store feels like cheating and cuts out interaction with a customer.


Selling at the grocery store is a pain. You need to travel all over the neighbourhood to get there only to stare at a building. And it's no use trying to sell perfect vegetables there, so really, why bother gardening when you could just as well raid the community gardens for fruits and veggies?

[rian90]

Selling at the grocery store is a pain. You need to travel all over the neighbourhood to get there only to stare at a building. And it's no use trying to sell perfect vegetables there, so really, why bother gardening when you could just as well raid the community gardens for fruits and veggies?

You are right. The only reason to try for perfect vegetables is for the lifetime want or one of those silly challenges. I never try for either since any gardening I do is to make and sell vegetables, fruit or wine. If there was some benefit, then it would be worthwhile. Winning nice cash prizes at the fair or being able to set a higher price at your own market stand on your own lot would be much better. EA really needs to enable home businesses, even if they don't do it as in depth as they did in Sims 2. I mean, they have lemonade stands! Can't they extend that to adults and selling things like vegetables and handmade items?

[vhanster]

I don't like gardening. My plants always die because I forgot to take care of it.

My first complain about TS3 was, in fact, about how there's no gardener service NPC to tend the plants when you forgot or is not in the mood to do it.

[tongues]

I have 5th generation households with so many money trees (that I can't take on a house move) that it becomes silly to upgrade to a new (bigger) lot cuz the family loses ten of thousands of simoleans. I find gardening a nice past-time for my otherwise bored elders.

[kennyinbmore]

It takes forever to grow anything, and then you have to stop and shower and that takes even longer...

And everyone who requests gardening stuff from you wants it in less than a week but things just don't grow that fast, and it's just overall a massive pain.

I have yet to try gardening. I haven't figured it out yet

[MsRed]

Gosh, if there's one thing that i ABSOLUTELY love is gardening. Nearly every sim I create is a Green Thumb! (To each their own, I guess... :)

[Elledee]

I don't mind it so much but I've never been a hardcore gardener. If I have 2 working parents and a teen or two I just send them all out to do it before work/school. They are so slow when they are low levels and it can take all day. One of the sims I have now is an astronaut so he only works one day a week and can handle them on his off days. His wife or kid handle it on weekends and Mondays, the rest of the week it's his job. Once their levels are high enough I just go find some money tree seeds and grow those and nothing else. In case I decide to move I keep a couple of seeds on hand and just start over.

[ninedoors]

I know my sister absolutely adores gardening because it's apparently a very easy way to make money. She told me that the best way to do it, as I've seen a couple people suggest, is to downsize so it doesn't take up so much time. Concentrate on getting the fruits that you do have up to a really good level (so many try one or two plants for a few different types) and then plant those ones and escalate their quality and so on and so forth. That way you're not left with this massive garden that takes forever and you'll get decent money.

Plus, sprinklers! I had no idea that they'll water your plants until a few weeks ago. Mind blown and changed my whole view of gardening.

Anyway, I, personally, like it. Despite its monotony, it's kinda soothing. And I like the idea of having farmers and always picture elder sims gardening because they've raised their family so now it's time to raise some plants. Or my hippie sims "living off the land." I tend to add context in my head so, generally, I'm pretty amused.

[shadedgrey63]

I don't mind it at all once you have auto-watering sprinklers. I rarely did it before, but now I have to fish and garden to make the perfect meals for the badge achievements. (I know - but I can't really help it, I like to achive everything possible. I'm a perfectionist. :P )

[applefeather2]

I love gardening. It's one of the things I loved best back in Sims 2 Seasons days, and I still think it's great. :)

[Sunshine021]

I love gardening because it can make you a decent amount of money, quickly. But I hate it because it takes forever and very quickly makes your Sim stink. ¬_¬

[High Plains Gamer]

When the Sims first came out, gardening was fairly useful; in fact, is was essential (along with fishing and cooking) to make ambrosia. However, the introduction of the chemistry set has rendered ambrosia useless for the most part, plus it only really requires the development of one skill rather than three.

The omniplant is limited, but it can be useful if used to clone things like rare books and deathfish.

I also believe there is a gardener mod somewhere on this site which allows you to have another sim come over and garden for you.

But I have not done the gardener thing for a long time now. There are lots of other things for the sims to do. When it comes to gardening, my usual thought is "been there, done that."

As usual, if there is something you don't like in the game, don't do it.

[kennyinbmore]

It takes forever to grow anything, and then you have to stop and shower and that takes even longer...

And everyone who requests gardening stuff from you wants it in less than a week but things just don't grow that fast, and it's just overall a massive pain.

I don't hate it, I just haven't figured out how to do it yet. :)

[Kestie Freehawk]

I just got Omni plants to work right, I still have to position my sim beside the mailbox and then order then x the icon but he can order them and plant them. I have never fully had the gardening work and am happy to see everything, like duckies on the plant and all the fishes. This is a sim that has made more than 5 million simolians in Nectar. He and his wife gardened and made nectar and the teens picked the money tree grove (75 trees).
The kids could be level 10 farmers in a week as teens. Now that the consignment store works I make money selling the stuff.

[bl00raspbery]

I love gardening! I've never gotten really far in it though. I always plan to though, but everyone's right. It just takes up too much time. It's so hard for my little Sims to balance work, a family, AND a garden :(. Sigh. Maybe one day I'll be a level 10 gardener. Lol.

[lisfyre]

I've had several Gardener sims - my "farmers" in Riverview and they make pretty decent money but it takes them all day to take care of their "farms". They also usually have the Angler trait so that they can get good fertilizer. I've had all of them at level 10 and never once got any Omni plants. I also struggle getting the cheese, egg, turkey, steak and hotdog plants (I'm not fussed with these because unless you're vegetarian, you don't "GROW" cheese, eggs and meat)... but they can grow everything else. Getting them to a high enough level in handiness is key to get those sprinklers on auto otherwise, it would take longer. As it is, my sim gets up at 6 - toilet, shower, breakfast, gardens, stops for lunch, uses the toilet, gardens, stops for dinner, toilet, gardens, showers, sleep. Rinse and repeat. It's a boring existence but I'm still wishing for a farm type EP coupled with an OFB style EP .... after weather and my game would be almost complete :)

[swirlisawesome]

I like gardening sometimes, I had a awesome garden with an awesome sim. But then she had a baby and everything died. :P

[shadedgrey63]

I like gardening sometimes, I had a awesome garden with an awesome sim. But then she had a baby and everything died. :P

Haha, yeah, when I have gardeners I generally turn aging off, and they don't really get out much.

[J. M. Pescado]

I like to achive everything possible. I'm a perfectionist. :P )I used to consider myself a Perfectionist also, but apparently in the the World of Sims, perfectionists are obsessed with pointlessly inefficient behaviors like bed-making. I stopped doing that the moment the Army stopped making me do it. Because why the hell would you bother? For those of you who actually still SLEEP, making your bed essentially more than doubles the cost of the entire cycle. Instead of "get out, get in", you've essentially added an entire extra "get in, get out" process, except no one is actually getting in or out, and you're just making it look like an invisible massless person has gotten in or out. I mean, what's the point? Don't you have a spherical frictionless cow to be milking, too?

[medieval_simmer]

I like it because it is a good way to make some money, but it does take all free time away from my sim housewives.

[Srikandi]

I have a friend who was running a garden with Douglas Viega's NPC Gardener mod, TWO of his gardening robots, AND Dolphin's gnome ;)

Which caused me to reflect how awesome script injection is, since that's the reason you can use all of them with no conflicts.

[kewpie]

Here are some things I've done to make gardening better.

1. Auto Water Sprinklers - save hours of labor. Many have said this, but it is worth repeating.

2. Twallan's debugger - Can expose unknown seeds so you aren't waiting to see what comes up. You're also not planting flame fruit over and over, hoping that it might be a life fruit. You know right away what you're getting. And the garden looks neater too.

3. Gardening books and channels - Learn while you're not gardening

4. Small plots - I think I mentioned this before, but it's also worth mentioning. Never garden bigger than 5x5 unless that's ALL your gardener will be doing the entire time. Plant 4 rows of 5 plants and one row in the middle with a sprinkler in the middle of that row. With the auto water sprinkler, your sim will tend garden less than two hours a day. My teen sim can garden before school every morning, so long as she has a teleporter. I use lots of big plots, but only with sims that are professional gardeners - and that's all they do all day long.

5. After you max out gardening, get other sims in the family to plant one seed in the garden (to "prime the pump" so they can gain skill) Then have everyone in the family out gardening. Your garden should be fully tended in less than a sim hour depending on the size of your family.

6. I don't use garden helpers like the magic gnome and suggest others don't until you max gardening - then just use them for maintenance. Don't use them while skilling, as gardening is faster than TV or reading. Reading and TV just are ways to boost fun between gardening stints and give you something to do since you'll only be gardening 2 hours a day. If you need gardeners or magic gnomes, your garden is too big.

7. I don't use them because the challenges I do frequently ban this stuff, but I think on TFM's site, there are gardening tuning mods that can make gardening fun and/or less dirty.

8. If you don't need to garden for skill but want fresh food, put a garden down on a public lot with everything you need and then just harvest the lot. Note that you will not get any skill unless you plant a seed first (you can destroy the seed plot after that) You can plant the stuff in buy debug. I suggest making several small gardens on many different lots - otherwise your sim will spend hours harvesting a giant lot. I THINK there is a way to get the quest only plants in buy debug - somewhere on this site in fact.

[rian90]

I usually put the plants down when I build the lot and have had no problem getting skill for my sims just through harvesting and tending the garden. In fact, I can't remember when I last planted a seed! I have a family of gardeners and they are almost all maxed out in skill.

[rockergrrl37203]

Gardening is pretty cool for me - I like to have at least one gardener in every generation (I'm playing a Legacy game). Once you complete the Botanical Boss and Master Farmer challenges then you can even go a day or two without tending your garden and the plants won't die. Also buying a sprinkler and upgrading it to "auto water" will reduce the amount of time spent tending the garden because Sims take forever to water the plants and an upgraded sprinkler will automatically water them at 5 AM every day. Plus getting high quality produce is super easy if you just replant your harvests, which means you can make lots of money selling the fruits and vegetables to the grocery store or you can put them in your Sim's fridge. If you have a fridge full of really good quality fruits and veggies even Sims with low cooking skill points can make high quality meals.

[buxcosim]

7. I don't use them because the challenges I do frequently ban this stuff, but I think on TFM's site, there are gardening tuning mods that can make gardening fun and/or less dirty.I use Chaavik's Less Hygiene and More Fun from Gardening Tasks mod here at MTS: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=355689. There are several flavors of the mod to choose from, including ones that only reduce the Hygiene hit, and some that enable gardening for children.

I could never understand why gardening was so strenuous that my Sim's would need a shower and a lie-down after tending just a few plants. (I'm a gardener IRL, and while gardening IS exercise - I think it should count as cardio! - it only drains Hygiene at the game's default rate if you're doing it in the full heat of summer, something I'll accept when they actually add summer to the game!) I also didn't get why my Green Thumb, Eco Friendly self-Sim would leave the garden with less Fun than when he entered it. Aren't I supposed to enjoy being out in nature and tending the plants? Isn't that the POINT of those traits? Fortunately, the Less Hygiene/More Fun version solves that problem.

I also agree that the "Auto Water" sprinkler upgrade is essential. And I've been doing the 5x5 plot gardening for ages, which also is a big help. I usually have three plots, one for "normal" produce (bushes and vines), one as an orchard (all the tree produce), and a special plot for all the weird stuff (flame fruit, life fruit, death flower, egg plants, etc.). With Auto Water sprinklers, I can usually tend all three plots in about two Sim hours, which gives me plenty of time to pursue a full time career. In fact, in my current game, My self-Sim reached the top of the Film/Directing career (his/my LTW) and is now at level 9 in the Magician career while maintaining about two dozen plants in the garden. (Needless to say, he's mastered Gardening, and completed all of the skill challenges.) My goal is to found a legacy (I just moved him into a giant mansion), and the garden will be available for future generations.

[fairycake89]

I like it! Or rather I like the sim guys I create who are Gardeners. Toned, tanned, good with a spade .. what more could a girl want? :p

[eeplants]

Well, I don't like gardening and taking care of the flower patches and the plants on the game, it just a waste of energy. So, I hire the gardener to do the job. :lol: :lol:
____________________________
Interior Plants LA (http://www.eeplants.com/)

[purplecatpajamas]

Oh my God, I absolutely HATE it! My plants always wilt every few hours, and they're such a pain to keep up with.

[StardustX]

I don't mind gardening. :3
I have a mod that makes it to where your fridge isn't stocked when you buy it, and since I don't like grocery shopping it makes me garden to keep my sims from starving.
I like growing and eating my own veggies in real life and in the sims. ^^

the only thing I don't like is how dirty you get... NO ONE gets that dirty while gardening in real life, unless you just have an enormous garden. So I use TCE to bring the hygiene bar back up when they're done.

[Retarded_Pig]

I'm just going to cut straight to the chase.
I hate gardening because it's related to the cooking skill, and sims just get the same wish over and over again. Learn gardening skill. NO.

[Srikandi]

NO ONE gets that dirty while gardening in real life, unless you just have an enormous garden.

I do :O I'm sure it's possible to garden tidily but if I'm weeding and/or planting I wind up dirty, and if I'm watering I wind up soaked!

Guess it's a matter of personal style though :)

[Howabominable]

I enjoy it, but it takes too long, so I downloaded the gardener mod. Now I can have large gardens without having to put 3 sims out there all day long.

[sciguy77]

This is in response to a mod request for Community Gardens posted in the "Mod Request" forum. You can set up a Community Garden without any mods, and here's how to do it!

Oddly enough, I just put a town garden in my world a couple of hours ago and you don't need any mods to do it. First, you have to find a new lot for your garden. Find (or place) a lot that's the size you want for it. If there are no lots available, go into World Editor and place a new one. Make sure the new lot is set to RESIDENTIAL. I made mine 20 X 25. Now get on the telephone and MOVE your sim there with an inventory full of seeds. You can use the seed spawners in BUYDEBUG if you want, but your plants will all be normal quality. Bring those perfect seeds with you! Set up your garden however you want it. I built a swimmable pond with a fish spawner, public restrooms, and a picnic area. Delphy's Garden Gnome (http://http://www.modthesims.info/d/393965) will speed things up, but isn't necessary to make the garden. Once the garden is set, move off of the lot. Since my gardener moved away from a family of 6 and was only gone 2 days, It was pretty simple to get her to her ask her family to move back in. Once you've left the lot you just created, go into EDIT TOWN and set it to Community/Small Park or Community /Allow Visitors. That's it -- you now have a community garden. The garden won't be used by inactive sims, but it won't die or grow weeds either. If you do use the Garden Gnome, leave it on the lot. Whenever you need a new Death Flower you can get the plant to spawn one right away by setting it to "Pulse" and activating it once or twice.

[runesong54]

Hey sciguy...have you been copying me? That is exactly what I do. Then I click on my plants 8 times to have my Sim cued up for a while, and spend my time with another family member. Works great. Delphy's Garden Gnome was the best mod EVER!

[Srikandi]

This is in response to a mod request for Community Gardens posted in the "Mod Request" forum.

... We don't have a mod request forum, lol.

If you pasted this from elsewhere, you might want to edit it ;) And if you didn't write it, cite your source!

BTW, the Garden Gnome is not by Delphy, it's by Dolphin...

It's a fine method though :)