Farming

What is farming?

Farming is one of the core features of Castaways. The original 2 crops are Sugar Cane and Palm Tree. Sugar Cane can be harvested and the plant directly replanted on Grass or Sand. Palm Trees yield wood and Coconuts, and the coconuts can be planted on Sand or Grass to grow more palm trees.

With the Homestead Update more Crops were introduced, but in order to grow these crops the player first needs to gather the corresponding Seeds. They drop from the Bird Feeder. Note, these new crops will NOT drop additional seeds.

With the Homestead update, the game will have day and night cycles.

• During the day, birds will come to Bird Feeders to eat the fish inside, and will poop. In the poop you can find seeds used to plant crops.
• In order to plant the seeds, you need to till the soil using a Wood Hoe or Stone Hoe
• The crops will need to be watered using a Watering Can. Occasionally when watering a Worm will appear.
• During the night, birds will come to eat your crops. You can scare them away using a Flare Gun or by placing a Scarecrow.
• When the crops are mature they can be harvested for their corresponding fruit (e.g. Corn seeds will yield Corn, tomato seeds will yield Tomatos)
• You CANNOT replant the fruit from crops that grow from seed

For a complete list of seeds that be planted, please refer to Seeds.

Farming 101

Step 1- Hoe the Grass, Get the Dirt

You need
Grass or Dirt
Wood Hoe or Stone Hoe

Procedure

Make a Hoe => Hoe the grass => Grass becomes plantable dirt!

Hoe the Grass, Get the Dirt.

Step 2- Feed thy Birds, Get thy Seeds

There are two ways of getting seeds right now.
1. Open the Treasure Chest, you may get seeds.
2. Make Bird Feeder, feed the bird, and get seeds from their poops.

Procedure
1. Place the Bird Feeder.
2. Put Fish into it, the rarer the fish, the more likely you will get rare seeds.
3. Wait for the seagull and when they come, get their poops!

Seagull is eating the fish.

Pick up the poop and get your seeds!

Step 3- Plant the seed, Water the life

Seeds need to be watered every 24 hours, use Watering Can.
Notes: You might get worm by watering! Worms can used to enhance your chance of getting big fish when fishing.

Step 4- Shoo the birds, Protect your plants

At night time, seagulls will come and try to destroy your plants. You must protect your plants against seagulls!
There are two ways of doing that.
1. Use Flare Gun. Remember, each flare gun can only be used once.
2. Make Scarecrow, and place them besides your plants.

Use flare gun to shoo the seagulls!

Scarecrow with a Milo face.

Step 5- Take your time, Wait for Harvest

Plants take 1 ~ 28 days to grow, depending on which type of seeds you're using and what your soil quality/type is.
Mind the wither Time, If you don't harvest ripe plants in time, they will wither and eventually die!
You can refer to the charts below.

How to Get More Dirt?

Dirt is the essence of Castaways's Farming System. Crops and Trees(except for Palm Tree must be planted on Dirt. But how to get more Dirt?
Well, there are two ways for you to get Dirt at this moment.

Hoe the Grass

Each island starts with 12 Grass. You can use Wood Hoe or Stone Hoe to transform them into Dirt.
However, this process is irrevocable. So make up your mind before you do that.
Procedure
Make a Hoe => Hoe the Grass => Grass becomes plantable Dirt!

Hoe the Grass, Get the Dirt.

Synthesize with Composter

A more sustainable way to get Dirt is by using Composter.
To synthesize Dirt, you need sand and crops.
Sand: Dirt ratio is 1:1, while Crops: Dirt ratio depends on which type of crops you're using.
For example, you need 2 Carrots for 1 Dirt, but with Cabbage, the ratio is 1:1.
The use of composter is the same as Furnace with only one exception--you need to left-click the composter.

Put Crops and Sand into the composter!

When the Dirt appears, break it! This is how you synthesize Dirt.

Break it!

Procedure
Put Sand and Crops into Composter => Left-Click the Composter => Break the Dirt

Crop:Dirt Ratio

Crops:Dirt Ratio

Per Crops	Dirt Output
	0.4451
	0.5411
	0.6297
	0.0505
	0.0379
	0.1132
	0.1908
	0.4610
	1.0761
	1.9575
	3.3756
	6.8221
	20.4401
	81.4269

Plants Growth Chart

Icon	Crop	Crop	Type	Time to Grow	Reproduce time	Stages	Harvest	Wither Time (2x)
	Carrots	Crop		1 day		5	1	2 days
	Cabbage	Crop		2 days		5	1	4 days
	Yam	Crop		4 days		5	1	8 days
	Strawberry	Crop	Keeps producing after maturity	7 days	3 days	5	1	14/6 days
	Coffee	Crop	Keeps producing after maturity	10 days	2 days	5	1	20/4 days
	Tomato	Crop	Keeps producing after maturity	11 days	4 days	5	1	22/8 days
	Corn	Crop	Keeps producing after maturity	14 days	4 days	5	1	28/8 days
	Pineapple	Crop	Keeps producing after maturity	14 days	7 days	5	1	28/14 days
	Banana	Tree	Keeps producing after maturity	28 days	14 days	4	1
	Passion Fruit	Tree	Keeps producing after maturity	28 days	14 days	4	1
	Mango	Tree	Keeps producing after maturity	28 days	14 days	4	1
	Guava	Tree	Keeps producing after maturity	28 days	14 days	4	1
	Orange	Tree	Keeps producing after maturity	28 days	14 days	4	1
	Lemon	Tree	Keeps producing after maturity	28 days	14 days	4	1

Soil quality and type chart

Soil type

:This crop has a 20% bonus effect when grown in this soil
:This crop has a 20% negative effect when grown in this soil
Otherwhise, this crop has no effect when grown in this soil

Soil Type	Carrots	Cabbage	Yam	Strawberry	Coffee	Tomato	Corn	Pineapple	Banana	Passion Fruit	Mango	Guava	Orange	Lemon
Loamy
Clay
Silty
Chalky
Peaty
Sandy

Soil Quality

This meter is the efficiency of how well something grows in the soil on your island. If the soil is 100%, then things will grow at a rate of 100% what they should be.
Excellent - 140%
Great - 120%
Good - 100%
Okay - 80%
Poor - 60%