Gardening Guide by Egomzez

In theory, that is the simple part. Often, though, what can result is a dried up withered plant you have to throw away. Which is a waste of effort or gil. What isn't simple is getting the thing you want out of planting.

Tips for Serious Gardening

To start I recommend reading through the gardening page. Keep in mind it is factual BUT not completely forthcoming with specific details. Sometimes specifics are incomplete or even off. That is why there are personal guides like this: To help you understand what it isn't telling you. May it help.

1. Get a workbench or maple table.
2. Gardening is well suited to getting items needed for crafting.
3. Farming your seeds is the most gil frugile way to garden.
4. You can improve your odds for harvesting the most protfitiable item by planting on the right day and examining the appropriate amount of times.
5. Wiki pages are not always detailed.

Basic

If you have one pot then you should do fine with the material already available on wiki pages. If, like me, you have 70 pots, then you are gonna value the little tidbits offered here. It can make the difference between a harvest of rock salt and a harvest of white rocks. Which, in case you didnt know, in Asura rock salt costs about 16 gil each and white rocks cost about 6.3k each. Big difference. A basic garden uses the 3 basic seeds: herb, vegetable, and grain. These are basic in that they come to harvest the quickest. Can be 3 - 4 days, depending on what time you plant them and how often you check them.

Complex

Complex gardening, a new term I am using, is a little different than advanced gardening. Complex gardening will be the gardening that involves longer durations to harvest, double-feeding plants or crystal-less garden.

Advanced

Advanced Gardening includes the longest duration harvests, elemental ore gardening, sapling harvest and advanced garden theory. This is a new section still under construction so please be patient. Egomzez 17:45, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

See Advanced Gardening Guide by Egomzez

Gil Garden

Make regular gil buying seeds from NPCs and selling what you grow to NPCs: for a profit.

See Gil Garden Guide by Egomzez

Crystal-less Garden

You don't need crystals to get things from gardening ... and here is how.

See Advanced Gardening Guide by Egomzez

These pages are always in progess and feedback is always welcome. Catch me often on Asura.

Basic Garden Details

Furniture Helps

Don't put your pots on the ground if you can help it. Get a workbench or maple table. The right furniture can give you the Moghancement: Gardening This can help your plants survive for longer periods between examinations.

A Maple Table or Workbench

Use resources

As a beginner you can plant and harvest without knowing what you are doing, but really if you are going to get serious, you need to look up seed recipes and know what you are going for. You can find out what seed in what pot with what crystal will yield a set of items. You can improve your odds for harvesting the most profitable item, sometimes, by planting on the right day and examining the plant the appropriate amount of times.

There isn't really any easy way to grow plants and become a gillionaire. Gardening is well suited to getting items needed for crafting. In some cases you can grow sellable items, but it is a daunting task to determine the best Auction House to sell for the optimum price. Prices can go up and down rapidly, especially if it is a fast selling items. You can wake up in the morning, see that the item is selling for 2k on the AH, and by afternoon, the price will have dropped to 1k, which is a big hassle if you put up 5 items at 2k. FFXIAH.COM is a great site for looking up sales on the Jeuno/Whitegate AHs.

Spend Little

Farming your seeds is the most gil frugile way to garden, if you have that time to wander around killings saplings. Drop rates vary from location to location and personally I lack the patience to do it. A job or craft that makes good gil is very helpful in gardening. Seeds run, in Asura, from 2 - 9k per stack. Fruit seeds and tree saplings can go for 1 - 8k per seed. Better know what you are doing if you are gonna spend that kinda gil on seeds.

Basic Harvest Cycle

The shorter harvest cycles general go as follows:

Vegetable, grain, and herb seeds:

Day 1: Plant Seeds [Day ends at Japanese Midnight (8am PST)

Day 2: Growth Cycle 1

Day 3: Feed Cycle 1

Day 4: Flowering

Day 5: Harvest

Basic Pots

	Around 1k for a Brass Flowerpot from Boytz in Bastok_Mines (H-7) (Standing in back room of the shop just behind the AH.
	Around 1k for a Ceramic Flowerpot from Pirvidiauce in Northern San d'Oria (D-8) (Standing near the exit gate going out into West Ronfaure at C-8)
	Around 1k for a Earthen Flowerpot from Ensasa in Windurst Waters (H-9) (In a shop at a T intersection)

Step by Step

This ia a walk through on exactly what you need to do to garden succsefully.

1. Get a pot. Basic pots can be bought cheapest from npcs:
2. Get your desired seed
3. Get a surface to put your pot on. This will give you a little mojo to keep your plants vital longer.
4. In your Mog House engage your Moggle and in that menu go to Mog Safe and transfer these items to your Mog Safe Then you will be able to set them up in your room.
5. Go back to main mog menu and select Layout. At first you select the table. Place it as you will, rotating it as needed. Once you have it placed select it again and select layout which should let you select the pot. Place that on the table. If that is all the furniture you have then you should get the moghancement Gardening Having other "non-earth" furniture can influence your moghancement. This guide assumes you don't have any furniture.
6. Esc back to mog menu and select Gardening. Then select the pot and from the menu that pops up select "plant seeds". Select the desired seed and approve its planting.
7. Once planted you should then come back 1 or more times a RL day (based on Japanese time) Examine the plant frequently. The moogle will say two things abou the plant as it grows. 1) "It's doing well." and "It's Growing well." This seems to appear randomly, but I feel that it is better to leave a plant growing and not doing, so I will examine it until the grow message appears. Sometimes that is just one examination.
8. At first you won't see anything in the pot. You only know something is there because the gardening menu options are EXAMINE and EMPTY POT. After the passing of one RL day, signified by Japanese Midnight (8am PST), you will see some green appear in your pots. It's better to overcheck your plant so it won't wither.
9. When the plant begins to get ready to flower you have the option to feed it a crystal. The option to feed will come up in the gardening menu at the time the plant is ready for it. Beginners should feed and use the crystal based on the recipe. As you get more experience you acn time it all, but at first don't worry about that.
10. The plant will flower and you should keep examining it. Again there are two mesages. One says something like "It's flowering!" and the other is something like "Its beautiful flowers!" Again I always opt to leave the plant beautiful as opposed to just flowering.
11. The option to dry flowers is something you can do to create a piece of furniture in your house. Once you dry the plant it remains in stasis. You wont be able to harvest it out of stasis, but you can empty the pot and start over.
12. When it is ready to harvest the option will come up. Note: To harvest you have to have space in your safe or your inventory. One space won't cut it cause if you were diligent about examining your plant you can get over 12 items. (If you try to harvest and nothing happens, it's because you don't have enough room. -Sutaru [Ramuh])