Farming and crops

Plant seeds in a bed or in open ground and they grow in real time, from about three quarters of an hour for cucumbers to over three hours for papaya. Each crop has a temperature it likes. Below its minimum it stops growing, it grows fastest near its best, and it slows right down in great heat.

Frost

Half an hour at or below a crop's frost point kills it. Tomatoes, corn, chilies, pumpkins, cucumbers, melons, eggplant, papaya and cotton die at freezing. Wheat, barley, cabbage, strawberries and hops shrug off a hard frost. Grow tender crops in the south or under glass in the north.

Water

A watered crop grows about a third faster for half an hour. A Watering Can waters up to four plants close together. Thirsty crops like cucumbers, strawberries, watermelons and hops grow at half speed when dry and die after eight hours without water. Hardy ones like barley, aloe and sunflowers don't care. Rain waters everything out in the open.

Perennials

Strawberries, hops, papaya and aloe don't need replanting. After a harvest they grow back from part-way and fruit again quickly. Papaya and hops go in open ground, not beds.

Greenhouses and grow lights

A greenhouse is about eight degrees warmer inside, grows a little faster, and keeps the rain off, so water by hand. Crops under a house roof or floor get almost no light and barely grow. Hang a Grow Light Kit over them and keep it powered: when the generator dies, so does the light.

Grain

• Wheat comes in as sheaves. Thresh them on a Threshing Floor with a Threshing Flail, or by hand with the flail, for grain and straw.
• A Grain Mill turns two wheat into flour. A hand quern works, but takes more grain.
• Corn mills into cornmeal, which bakes into cornbread at a fire.

Bees and the well are on their own page: Bees and the well.

Most crops also give some seed back when you harvest them. Save it, because seed is hard to find.