Gardening and fertilizing

[GayJohnScarritt]

Whenever I plant water melon it dries up and almost dies every day.. soo sick of this.

Also.. I havent figured out how to make the sprinkler automatic water the plants at night.

From my experiences, Watermelons (and the Money Tree) show the effects of needing water differently than the other plants, tho they'll all show as 'wilting'

As for the automatic sprinklers, they work automatically from 4-7 am, and there is no night option.

You'll also need a sim with a high enough 'Handiness' skill, to upgrade the sprinklers to 'Auto-water'.  I have yet to have a sprinkler actually break tho, when starting out a family and leaving them running 24/7.

[Gus Smedstad]

It's not clear that auto-water is even needed.  You can just turn the sprinkler on and leave it on, with no apparent ill effects.  Personally, I turn the sprinklers on briefly and then off whenever something obviously needs watering, just because constant watering bothers my frugal soul.

 - Gus

[fatkitty]

I thought that using the sprinklers added to the household bills.

[phnxflyng]

Back to topic: Crosspollination...yeah right!! I believe that "gardening badass" rather forgot, what he planted where.

Yeah... I think he's full of fertilizer.

BTW: My level 10 gardener (with the green thumb trait plus the "super green thumb life time award" can revive Death-flowers more than once.
Not sure if that's a bug/glitch or a feature. Death flowers keep piling up in his inventory and I didn't find any appr. use for them yet
(besides working as a trade off whenever a sim dies by accident...which hasn't happen in my game yet)

-le

One of my sims who is a green thumb and has the super green thumb, but it not level 10 (he's like, 7, I think), also seems to be able to revive death plants over and over. I haven't tried after the fourth time, though, since I have no use for all these death flowers. Everyone in the fambly has two at least. So I let the plant die and tossed it.

I also have a veritable orchard of money trees. On a good harvest day I bring in $10K in money bags. It's nice. They've started dropping seeds, too.

Some plants do wilt every day. It's no big deal, just sprinkler or tend... I did have the dad of the gardening sim I mentioned upgrade the sprinklers... I don't know if I could leave them on, I guess it's hardwired in me not to waste water, even virtual water.  

Does anyone know if flame fruits have any effect other than the moodlet you get after picking them?
I was sort of hoping that my sim would burst into flames after eating one, but no, he chops them up and puts them on his pancakes.


_{edit: added flame fruit question}

[Gus Smedstad]

Aside from the +5 mood for carrying one, Flame Fruit is an ingredient in Angel Food Cake, which gives a larger warmth bonus (+15 if I recall) after you eat it, beyond the regular food quality bonuses.

Despite that, I feel compelled to feed Sims a "healthy," time-appropriate diet, so I almost never end up eating the stuff.  Even though it's arguably the best food in the game, better than Lobster.  Desserts are kind of strange, since they're essentially just another meal.  If it were me, I'd have tweaked the design to get behavior much like real desserts, i.e. Sims would eat dinner and a small serving of dessert, and the bonuses would stack, but doing so meant fat.

 - Gus

[Roflganger]

Does anyone know of an existing Flame Fruit plant in Riverview?  My poor Sim has had a wish to grow one for about 3 Sim weeks, but I can't seem to find one, and I'm not getting lucky with the seeds.

[mindtempest]

One of my sims who is a green thumb and has the super green thumb, but it not level 10 (he's like, 7, I think), also seems to be able to revive death plants over and over. I haven't tried after the fourth time, though, since I have no use for all these death flowers. Everyone in the fambly has two at least. So I let the plant die and tossed it.

Direct contradiction to ingame XML. Ingame XML, as well as empirical testing, show clearly 2 harvests before barren, so there is NO possibility you could revive the same death plant four times.

I thought that using the sprinklers added to the household bills.

Apparently they do, and so do the spotlights. Bills jumped from ~1k to ~3k after I started leaving the 10 sprinklers for the massive farm on auto-water and 4 spotlights permanantly on.

Does anyone know of an existing Flame Fruit plant in Riverview?  My poor Sim has had a wish to grow one for about 3 Sim weeks, but I can't seem to find one, and I'm not getting lucky with the seeds.

Just find Unknown Special Seeds and plant them, you have a 1/4 chance of getting a flame fruit bush. In a good night with the Finder one can find up to 12 special seeds.

[IgnorantBliss]

From my experiences, Watermelons (and the Money Tree) show the effects of needing water differently than the other plants, tho they'll all show as 'wilting'

I think watermelons and some other plants show as wilting because they are more sensitive to the ground getting dry. Somewhere around the forum ( here: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,15363.msg441788.html#msg441788) someone posted some details about the plants they found, and there was something about watermelons going into negative when the ground is just "neutral", while most plants still stay in the positive aka non-wilted.

[phnxflyng]

One of my sims who is a green thumb and has the super green thumb, but it not level 10 (he's like, 7, I think), also seems to be able to revive death plants over and over. I haven't tried after the fourth time, though, since I have no use for all these death flowers. Everyone in the fambly has two at least. So I let the plant die and tossed it.

Direct contradiction to ingame XML. Ingame XML, as well as empirical testing, show clearly 2 harvests before barren, so there is NO possibility you could revive the same death plant four times.

Well, the plant kept coming back to life with the green light and everything. Why would I lie?

[J. M. Pescado]

Despite that, I feel compelled to feed Sims a "healthy," time-appropriate diet, so I almost never end up eating the stuff.

"Healthy, time appropriate diets" are, in fact, healthy and unnatural, as the Sims neatly demonstrates. If you try to make your sims eat like "normal people", they become *FAT*, like NORMAL PEOPLE, which just goes to show that NORMAL PEOPLE are DOING IT WRONG.

[IgnorantBliss]

What the sims need is portion control. You can eat all sorts of crap without gaining weight as long as you watch how much you eat. Is it healthy, probably not.

[J. M. Pescado]

You can eat all sorts of crap without gaining weight as long as you watch how much you eat. Is it healthy, probably not.

The truth that few people are apparently smart enough to grasp, yes. People seem to really struggle with this "conservation of mass" concept. The idea that the amount of weight you gain can be readily calculated simply by subtracting the amount you poop out from the amount you eat is nothing short of magic to some people.

[simmilk]

Forcing bulimia doesn't seem to reverse the weight gain from over eating either.   

[caitlyn]

So they'll just keep yielding produce? Cool! I have quite a few perfect and special plants that i didn't want to lose. Thanks.

Yes, a definite exploit.  I saved a lot full of perfect fruit/veggies/money trees and plop it down as a community lot in non-challenge neighborhoods.  They can go daily and harvest without having to do anything for it.

[phnxflyng]

Back to topic: Crosspollination...yeah right!! I believe that "gardening badass" rather forgot, what he planted where.

Yeah... I think he's full of fertilizer.

So... I was wandering around Riverview and my sim was hungry, so I had her harvest what I thought was an apple tree on the McDermott farm. Strangely, when I checked her inventory, she also had limes. I hovered over the tree and it said it was a lime tree. But she did get apples from it.

I am going to try to duplicate this as I am starting to think maybe he's not so full of fertilizer after all...

[Faizah]

If you click 'harvest', the sim will proceed to harvest anything they can, until they either run out of harvestables on that lot or are directed to stop. It's possible the sim harvested an apple tree and a lime tree.

[skelley]

I have a Sim who is a Mad Scientist. He will occasionally bring home "leftover" items from experiments at work, including seeds and a deathflower.

He also has the Transmogrify interaction with eatables in his inventory. He can turn apples into flame fruits that way.

[Motoki]

I have a Sim who is a Mad Scientist. He will occasionally bring home "leftover" items from experiments at work, including seeds and a deathflower.

He also has the Transmogrify interaction with eatables in his inventory. He can turn apples into flame fruits that way.

Hmm, odd. I don't have the transmogrify interaction though I do have the "perform experiment on" one. Did transmogrify come from an opportunity or does it just appear at level 10 science and maybe my sim is just bugged? *sigh*

Also, I read you can bring the death plant back to life once you harvest it if you have the green thumb trait. Well I do but I never get the interaction to do it. It's not barren, the death plant just ends up regular dead once you harvest.

[IgnorantBliss]

Hmm, odd. I don't have the transmogrify interaction though I do have the "perform experiment on" one. Did transmogrify come from an opportunity or does it just appear at level 10 science and maybe my sim is just bugged? *sigh*

From what I've read on the forums, the offspring of firemen sometimes or always have the ability to turn any fruit into a flame fruit.

[fatkitty]

Also, I read you can bring the death plant back to life once you harvest it if you have the green thumb trait. Well I do but I never get the interaction to do it. It's not barren, the death plant just ends up regular dead once you harvest.

You have to have high enough gardening skill as well.  I believe it's level 6.

[skelley]

Hmm, odd. I don't have the transmogrify interaction though I do have the "perform experiment on" one. Did transmogrify come from an opportunity or does it just appear at level 10 science and maybe my sim is just bugged? *sigh*

From what I've read on the forums, the offspring of firemen sometimes or always have the ability to turn any fruit into a flame fruit.

This Sim is the grandson of a firefighter, so maybe that's where it came from. I didn't notice it until he was already a mad scientist.

[Motoki]

Also, I read you can bring the death plant back to life once you harvest it if you have the green thumb trait. Well I do but I never get the interaction to do it. It's not barren, the death plant just ends up regular dead once you harvest.

You have to have high enough gardening skill as well.  I believe it's level 6.

I have several sims past 6 and gardening and seem not ever have gotten the revive ability. *shrug*

[Gus Smedstad]

Revive requires the Green Thumb trait.  Not the perk, the personality trait.

 - Gus

[FrickinIdjit]

What factors, if any, affect the chances of success when reviving a barren deathflower?  My - admittedly short - experiments with it show a 50/50 chance of success on any given day.

[Motoki]

Revive requires the Green Thumb trait.  Not the perk, the personality trait.

 - Gus

Ah okay. The ones I tried just had the perk. I have a new sim that just aged up to YA and I gave him the personality trait but he just got to level 6 so I'll work him up to 10 and see if I can do it.

Is it redundant to have the perk and the personality trait or do the benefits stack?