Farm and Scarecrow Fields

Complete Irienne Mossmark's Farm and recruitment quest before planning her fields. This core farm grows inventory items. A marked Farming workplace instead has Townsfolk plant wheat for population food support.

Irienne works the town's crops from a crop plan. You paint which crop goes where. She tills the ground, sows from the farm's seed store, waters, harvests and sows again, all by herself during her work hours while someone from town is nearby.

1. Use the farm's storage cupboard to open the field planner directly, or place a Farmer's Scarecrow on open ground anywhere in town and use it. Irienne gives you one Scarecrow when her farm is built, and more are crafted at the Town Planning Desk.
2. Pick a crop in the palette and select cells on the map. Double click a cell to paint its whole bed. Right click a cell to clear it. Fill field paints everything that is free.
3. That is all. Until you paint a plan a farm keeps its old automatic production. The first painted cell hands the farm to Irienne.

The farm building has a field of its own. Every Scarecrow claims the ground around it as one more field with its own plan. Cells that cannot be farmed are dark on the map, and hovering over one says why.

Seeds. A farm starts with a handful of wheat and lettuce seeds. Each cell uses one seed when it is sown, and a harvest gives its seed back about half the time. When the seed store runs out Irienne makes seeds from the Life Essence in the farm's stores, at the price of the game's own Farming Bench. Add seeds moves the seeds you carry into the store.

Soil. Every cell is Worn, Good or Rich, shown by its colour on the map.

• Good soil is ordinary soil.
• Rich soil doubles every harvest and has a small chance of a Golden Harvest, which every villager loves as a gift and which sells for a high price.
• Worn soil will not hold water, so crops grow slowly there.

Growing the same crop in a cell six times running wears it one step. Sowing a different crop than last time lifts it one step, so Rotate crops once a day keeps most of a field Rich. Compost mends Worn soil.

Compost. The farm keeps 25 of each crop. Crops beyond that are not wasted: three spare crops make one compost, and Irienne spreads it on Worn soil.

The Almanac. Each week the Almanac favours a few of the crops Irienne can grow. A favoured crop is planted already sprouted and gives one extra crop at every harvest. The Almanac button shows this week and the next.

Farm upgrades are paid with Life Essence and crops, from your pack first, then from the farm's stores and the warehouse.

• More Scarecrows lets Irienne tend up to three Scarecrow fields. She starts with one.
• Wider reach makes every Scarecrow field larger.
• Better watering wets the cells around the one she waters.
• Seed saving makes every harvest give its seed back.
• Richer compost needs fewer crops, and at its second level makes Good soil Rich.
• Almanac insight favours a third crop each week, then shows a whole season ahead.

Each crop needs the Farmer's Mastery and unlocks shown in the palette. Collect harvests from the field planner's stores or the warehouse's Building Outputs; the farm no longer opens a separate Building Output screen. Crops inside Apprentice workplaces are not Irienne's: Apprentice farms feed the town and never produce items. A farm that already did field work before this change keeps working with its beds as its plan.

When a field is waiting

Hover a dark or blocked cell for its reason. Check the crop plan, seeds or Life Essence, Irienne's Mastery, walking access, work hours and output space. A Scarecrow must belong to your town and fit within the farm's field allowance. Crops in Apprentice workplaces are reserved for their workers.

See Farming workplace, Population and villager availability, and Warehouse and deliveries for the related systems.