Gardening | How to get food Don't Starve Guide

Last update: 11 May 2016

Once you build the Alchemy Engine, you can finally get to building a farm. There are two kinds of these: Basic Farm and Improved Farm. The difference between those is the speed they give crops with and their longevity. The differences are outlined in the below table. Using the Basic Farm is not too effective, so it is better to create the improved ones right from the beginning.

Name	Basic Farm	Improved Farm
Materials	8x Grass, 4x Manure, 4x Log	10x Grass, 6x Manure, 4x Stone
Plant growth speed	40 hours of daylight	20 hours of daylight
Number of harvests before fertilizing is necessary	20	30

After you create the farms, you need to sow plants with regular Seeds or seeds for specific plants (e.g. Carrot Seeds). To create the latter ones, however, you need to have a bird. To learn more, read the chapter devoted to animals. Until you manage to catch a bird, you will have to make use of regular seeds, which yields random plants. The plants have been listed below.

Vegetable name	Chance of growing
Carrot	31,6%
Corn	31,6%
Pumpkin	10,5%
Eggplant	10,5%
Durian	5,25%
Pomegranate	5,25%
Dragon Fruit	5,25%

After planting, wait for 40 hours in the case of the Basic Farm and 20 hours in the case of the Improved Farm, before harvesting. Remember that only the daylight hours count here. Fortunately enough, there are several factors that increase the speed of growth. The ones that remain outside of your powers are temperature and rainfalls. If the temperature is above 28 degrees, the speed of growth is higher by 100%, and rainfalls can speed the process up even by additional 300% (depending on the intensity). Unfortunately, this works both ways. The temperature below 5 degrees halts all vegetation. That is why a farm is not the best food source during winters.

You can also speed the process up by yourself, by fertilizing the plants with Manure, Rot and Rotten Eggs. Basic Farm requires 4x Manure or 16x Rot/Rotten Egg, and Improved Farm 2x Manure or 8x Rot/Rotten Egg, to bear ripe vegetables. Still, the manure needs to be supplied in waves with intervals.

What also depends on the farm type is the number of harvests before the compulsory fertilizing. In the case of the Basic Farm it's 20, and in the case of the Improved Farm - 30. When the soil goes barren, (it will become grey and green), every piece of Manure applied to it will allow you to grow additional 10 plants. Rot and Rotten Egg increases the number by 2.