Here’s a guide to help get you started with Farming in Project Zomboid. It covers what items you’ll need, planting crops and dealing with disease.
What You’ll Need
Farming is important for long term food supply in Zomboid. You’ll find most of the tools and items you’ll need at your local hardware store:
- Shovel, a hand shovel (trowel) will also work.
- Water container (water bottles are great).
- Seeds (Find them in hardware stores and warehouses).
Building Your Plot
Choosing a good place to set up your farm will make your life easier. There are 2 factors to consider when selecting your plot:
- Safety. Crops can be trampled on and destroyed by zombies. For maximum safety you can set up your farm on the second floor of a building. The easiest way to do this is to find a 2 story house and build yourself a make shift balcony. Open a window on the second floor, build wooden floors, fill a sack with dirt, then place dirt on these floor tiles before digging your furrows. Alternatively if you have Lv. 6 Carpentry you can just build stairs and set up your farm on the roof.
- Water Access. You’ll want easy access to water. Rain Collector Barrels are great or alternatively set up your farm next to a river.
Water doesn’t need to be purified for plants, tainted water is fine.
Growing Crops
Once you have dug your furrows you can right click to Sow Seeds. Crops take different lengths of time to grow, just keep them well hydrated and free of disease:
| Crop | Avg Days Until Harvest | Avg Days Until Seeds |
|---|---|---|
| Carrots | 11 | 13 |
| Broccoli | 23 | 28 |
| Radish | 12 | 15 |
| Strawberries* | 29 | 29 |
| Tomato* | 24 | 24 |
| Potato | 20 | 24 |
| Cabbage | 10 | 12 |
| *Strawberries and Tomatoes can only be harvested at Phase 7 (seed bearing) | ||
- All crops have 7 growing phases and begin at Phase 1 after planting seeds.
- Crops can be harvested in Phases 6+. Except for Strawberries and Tomatos which can only be harvested in Phase 7.
- Harvesting Phase 7 crops will give seeds.
- Strawberries when harvested will go back to Phase 2 instead of having to be replanted.
- After Phase 7 crops will begin to rot.
Leveling Farming
Farming can be leveled by harvesting crops, higher Farming Levels will give you more information about the status of your crops:
- Lv. 2 – Displays current growth phase as name. Crop health is color coded.
- Lv. 4 – Water level is color coded with bar graph, mouse over shows water level. Disease shows name.
- Lv. 5 – Displays current growth phase as number out of 7. Displays Health and Water as numbers.
- Lv. 6 – Disease is shown as number.
- Lv. 8 – Next growth phase shown as number of hours.
Using Fertilizer
- Fertilizer will speed up your crops by 20 hours for the current growing phase. Any left over time is lost ie it will not remove hours from the next phase.
- Using too much (4-5 uses) will kill your plant
- Fertilizer can be made from a Composter (Lv. 2 Carpentry). Just fill it with rotten food and vegetables. You’ll need a sack to collect the compost once its ready (about 2 weeks).
Dealing With Sickness and Disease
There are 3 diseases you’ll need to deal with, the first two can be dealt with by crafting a remedy. You’ll need to be either the Farmer occupation or have read The Farming Magazine:
- Mildew slows the growth of your plants.
Craft Mildew Spray = Gardening Spray Can + Milk (even rotten milk works) - Insects case plants to consume more water.
Craft Insecticide Spray = Gardening Spray Can + Water+ 5x Cigarettes - Devil’s Water Fungi reduces crop yield.
Reduce water to less than 10% of Min Requirement. DWF can form on untreated plants with the Mildew or Insects sickness. So to avoid DWF just make sure to treat your plants once they first become sick.
Zombie blood will also make your crops sick. Not as much of a problem if your farm is on the second floor.
Diseases will spread so you’ll want to have a 1 tile space between your crops.
