Could retaining soil please either all work or all not work?

[NextXander]

@BeenASon @Nonak Remember to stay on topic

 

[BeenASon]

Back to topic you people should just use sprinklers. Who needs retaining soil? Except for garden pots there completely worthless.

 

[DemiserofD]

Back to topic you people should just use sprinklers. Who needs retaining soil? Except for garden pots there completely worthless.

The beach farm is my favorite farm :)

 

[BeenASon]

The beach farm is my favorite farm :)

Fair enough.

 

[GamesEnd]

Yeah, Retaining Soil is pretty useless until you get to Deluxe Retaining Soil which stays watered permanently. Same goes for Sprinklers which are almost useless until at least Quality and optimally Iridium level. But at least those are predictable where they water, Retaining Soil is only somewhat useful if you still have a basic Watering Can that's never been upgraded but that still doesn't make the soil randomness any less annoying.

Delux retaining soil does not stay watered once the season passes. Tested on 3 patches. When it changed from autumn to winter, patch disappeared along with crops. Does not stay watered permanently

 

[Lew Zealand]

Delux retaining soil does not stay watered once the season passes. Tested on 3 patches. When it changed from autumn to winter, patch disappeared along with crops. Does not stay watered permanently

You can get around this by planting Fiber Seeds as they grow across all seasonal changes. All you need is a crop that spans the 2 seasons, so you could also use Corn or Sunflower in Summer to Fall but Fiber Seeds are cheaper to make.

 

[GamesEnd]

You can get around this by planting Fiber Seeds as they grow across all seasonal changes. All you need is a crop that spans the 2 seasons, so you could also use Corn or Sunflower in Summer to Fall but Fiber Seeds are cheaper to make.

Defeats the purpose of it. And it does not say it looses moisture between seasons.

It says

HAS A 100% CHANCE OF RETAINING MOISTURE OVERNIGHT.

So the seasonal change should not affect it at all.

10/10 would use if when my vines went rotten / disappeared between the seasons, the plowed soil remained, and remained watered. But since it doesn't, not worth the materials used to craft, considering one is much harder to obtain.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Defeats the purpose of it. And it does not say it looses moisture between seasons.

It says

HAS A 100% CHANCE OF RETAINING MOISTURE OVERNIGHT.

So the seasonal change should not affect it at all.

10/10 would use if when my vines went rotten / disappeared between the seasons, the plowed soil remained, and remained watered. But since it doesn't, not worth the materials used to craft, considering one is much harder to obtain.

This is the game mechanic and it was worse at the beginning as there was no way at all to span seasons, you simply lost your soil upgrades on the 1st. It was in the v1.5 or so update when we could retain soil upgrades through the next season by leaving a crop planted which grows in both.

Which makes sense from an IRL perspective, you need to add fertilizer on a regular basis to get best yields from many/most crops. However there are many IRL places where you never need to water your crops as natural rainfall is enough, so if "keeping it real" is the idea then there should be a farm type (more than one farm type?) which doesn't need sprinklers to keep crops watered at all.

Maybe making a new post requesting this here in Game Suggestions could help?

But for now if you want to retain your soil upgrades when the season changes, you can plant Fiber Seeds as they're pretty cheap to make. On Summer/Fall 1 I just pick up my Sprinklers (as I use Deluxe Speed Gro) and Bomb my Farm. This clears out the 1/4 grown Fiber (yet somehow doesn't destroy the watering and Speed-Gro, lol) and I replace the Sprinklers and get to planting. Spring 1 I just scythe the Fiber that's been hanging out all Winter.

Plus I have en excuse to Bomb my farm, who doesn't want to do that?

 

[FilthyGorilla]

You can get around this by planting Fiber Seeds as they grow across all seasonal changes. All you need is a crop that spans the 2 seasons, so you could also use Corn or Sunflower in Summer to Fall but Fiber Seeds are cheaper to make.

The only annoying thing with this is that you need to do it before the season change as dead plants don't retain whatever fertilizer was on their soil, so that means pickaxing crops if you use anything regrowing (ancient fruit primarily), and need to anyway over winter.

 

[Lew Zealand]

The only annoying thing with this is that you need to do it before the season change as dead plants don't retain whatever fertilizer was on their soil, so that means pickaxing crops if you use anything regrowing (ancient fruit primarily), and need to anyway over winter.

OK that's a pain. It turns out I end up not needing to pickaxe anything because I don't like to grow reharvestables out on the Farm because you lose them the following season (or 2) later. The Greenhouse (and/or Ginger) gets 1 each of all these (the rest filled with Ancient Fruit or Pineapple/Blueberry) to grow in perpetuity and I just grow Rhubarb/Cauliflower/Starfruit/Melon/Pumpkin with Deluxe Speed-Gro outside.

It seems almost an intended game mechanic to do this as for all of these you get:

• 3 harvests/season
• all mature on the 28th, making retaining the Deluxe Speed-Gro easy with Fiber
• the mid-season harvest days of 10th and 19th do not overlap with any Festivals or Events (almost too convenient!)
• all make good g whether direct selling or Artisanal Processing
• and to your point: no pickaxeing to clear the old crop away (though.. eh: Bombs could work too heehee!)

Growing these makes me feel like a farmer when in reality I'm a filthy capitalist.

 

[GamesEnd]

The only annoying thing with this is that you need to do it before the season change as dead plants don't retain whatever fertilizer was on their soil, so that means pickaxing crops if you use anything regrowing (ancient fruit primarily), and need to anyway over winter.

So, how do you get enough clay to do 2000+ crop squares with fibre? Unless I spend every day plowing and then pickaxing the plowed tiles, and ignored mines, volcano and cavern, I likely still wouldn't obtain enough clay each cycle, or the change between fall > winter > spring.


That is 6,000 fibre seeds needed each growing year....


Just to ensure that something that guarantees 100% of the time, will retain moisture and keep the tile plowed, will actually retain moisture.... and keep the tile plowed when the season changes!

 

[Lew Zealand]

So, how do you get enough clay to do 2000+ crop squares with fibre? Unless I spend every day plowing and then pickaxing the plowed tiles, and ignored mines, volcano and cavern, I likely still wouldn't obtain enough clay each cycle, or the change between fall > winter > spring.


That is 6,000 fibre seeds needed each growing year....


Just to ensure that something that guarantees 100% of the time, will retain moisture and keep the tile plowed, will actually retain moisture.... and keep the tile plowed when the season changes!

I'm interested to hear Mr. Gorilla's answer as he falls on the MAX side of the min-max spectrum but mine is a simple one:

• Max Farmed tiles 192
• Fiber only used for Fall-Spring transition, over-Wintering in the ground
• Plant Coffee for Spring-Summer transition, Wheat for Summer-Fall, both cheap!

That necessitates a mere 48 Clay/year. Yes only 192 Farming spots but I simply cannot do that large-scale Farming: too much work! Which conveniently allows me to get away with minimal Clay accumulation and that's only in peak years. After a while I whittle down to 96 (and now 87) tiles, which takes next to nothing.