Are you wondering how to garden in Sims 3? In this article, we will explore the exciting world of gardening, revealing how to utilize it for a hobby or even a career. Perhaps you want to grow plants for money, alchemy, bait for fishing, or even just to cook with. With a ton of plant options that your sim can grow, there is a little something for every type of sim gardener.
Table of Contents
Getting Started with How To Garden in Sims 3
To start the process of how to garden in Sims 3, you will need to purchase a household lot, increase your gardening skill, buy or find seeds, and tend to your garden. Fertilizing with beneficial fertilizers will help you grow even higher-quality plants. Completing these actions will set you on the path to a bountiful harvest!
Purchase a Household Lot
The first step in your journey of learning how to garden in Sims 3 is to purchase a lot. This is the place where you will build a home for yourself, as well as plant seeds for your future garden. You will get to choose where you want to grow your garden and be able to move it at any time in build/buy mode. Any location outdoors will be sufficient.
Increase Gardening Skill Level
Increasing your gardening skill is essential to unlocking the ability to plant more kinds of seeds. As you raise your gardening skill, you will unlock different plants to grow, as well as other activities that benefit your garden such as the ability to fertilize. These are the ways that you can raise your gardening skill in The Sims 3:
- Books: One of the main ways to increase your sim’s gardening skill is by reading gardening books. There are three books that you can purchase from the bookstore in your town. Free versions of the gardening books can be read at the local library as well.
- Gardening Class: Sims will have the ability to take a gardening class that will increase their gardening skill. This can be found as an option at the science laboratory in town.
- Television: Watching the gardening channel on television is a passive and enjoyable way for your sim to level up their gardening skill, while simultaneously having fun. While your sim is watching television, simply change the channel to the Got Garden channel.
- Gardening: The most obvious way to learn how to garden in Sims 3 and slowly raise your skill is by actively partaking in the activity. This will raise your sim’s skill but they often will not have enough to do in the garden at one time to raise their skill efficiently. You can expect this method to take some time.
Buy or Find Seeds to Plant
The next step to making a garden in Sims 3 is to purchase the produce that you want to plant and grow! Depending on the gardening skill level that your sim is at, you will be able to grow different things. In the beginning, most plants can be bought at the supermarket and planted in the ground. However, at gardening level 5, you will unlock the ability to plant uncommon seeds. At gardening level 7, you will unlock the ability to grow rare and special plants from seed. You will be able to find seeds and wild plants outdoors around town. Searching near the cemetery is an excellent location to find uncommon, rare, and special seeds!
To plant a seed, navigate to your sim’s personal inventory. This is where you will find items that have been purchased or found by your sim. Click on the piece of produce that you wish to plant. Here you will see a popup of options and you should select the ‘plant’ option. You will then be able to select where on the ground you want the sim to plant the item. It will then be placed in the sim’s queue of things to do.
Tending Your Garden
In order to successfully grow high-quality crops, you will need to tend to your garden. Tending your garden includes watering, weeding, and harvesting. These actions will ensure your crops are properly cared for and given the best chance at producing the highest quality plants. You can choose to do each action individually or you can select ‘tend garden’ and complete them all at once on every plant.
Fertilizing Your Garden
Fertilizing your garden with the best fertilizers will help increase the quality of your harvest. When you plant your seeds, be sure to have high-quality fertilizer on hand and choose the option to “Fertilize with Best Fertilizers”. This will fertilize the plants with the best items in your sim’s inventory. The best things you can fertilize your garden with are life fruit and garlic. This is because they provide the most fertilizer points for the longest number of days. For some crops, fertilizer will decrease the days until they are ready to be harvested. Fertilizing your garden in Sims 3 is an essential part of growing high-quality plants.
Useful Traits
When learning how to garden in Sims 3, there are four main traits that will benefit you. Each of these traits will give you an upper hand in gardening by allowing you to be better at the skill or by making your job easier. If you are making a gardener sim, consider picking these traits:
- Green Thumb: This trait will allow you to learn the gardening skill more quickly than others, grow higher quality produce, talk to plants, and revive dead plants! To get you started, you will automatically start with a gardening book in your inventory that you can read to increase your skill.
- Handy: Handy sims can repair and upgrade objects successfully. The main perk to having this trait when gardening, is that you will be able to upgrade your sprinklers to automatically water your garden in the morning. This will save your sim a massive amount of time because they won’t need to water by hand.
- Gatherer: This trait can be very useful as a gardener because your sim will plant at a higher quality than other sims do. This can give you a boost in creating a high-quality garden when just starting out.
- Loves the Outdoors: Sims who garden a lot will be outdoors frequently. This trait gives a +20 moodlet when outdoors. Sims with the loves the outdoors trait will also tend to be better gardeners as well, making this an excellent trait to pair with green thumb.
Self Employment
If you find that you love gardening in The Sims 3, you can even make it your career path now. This will allow you to focus all of your efforts on growing a large and sustainable garden to earn a living from. As you sell produce, you will get promoted and earn bonuses. Head on over to city hall and register yourself as self-employed to begin this career!
Value of Plants in Sims 3
Choosing the most profitable plants is a key part of how to garden in Sims 3 and make the most money. This is even more important if you have chosen to be self-employed as a gardener. Choosing profitable plants to grow is a balance of the potential maximum sell value of the plant with the amount you can harvest.
Common Plants
Common plants are those that you will learn to grow in the garden earlier on. You will find most of these at the supermarket to buy. These often do not sell for as much money but do not require a high gardening skill level to plant.
| Plant | Max Sell Value For 1 | Max Harvest Size |
|---|---|---|
| Lettuce | 12 | 15 |
| Tomato | 12 | 20 |
| Apples | 16 | 40 |
| Grapes | 16 | 15 |
| Basil | 60 | 15 |
| Ginseng | 52 | 15 |
| Peppermint | 48 | 15 |
| Red Valerian Root | 24 | 20 |
| Wolfsbane | 52 | 20 |
| Cherimola Blan Grapes | 16 | 30 |
| Renoit Grapes | 16 | 30 |
| Cortado Bean | 80 | 20 |
| Kona Bean | 36 | 20 |
| Maui Bean | 44 | 20 |
| Midnight Bean | 48 | 20 |
| Red Berry Bean | 200 | 20 |
| Red Toadstools | 80 | 30 |
| Porcinis | 40 | 30 |
| White Caps | 20 | 30 |
| Mandrake | 24 | 20 |
Uncommon Plants
Once a sim has reached gardening level 5, they will now be able to grow uncommon plants. Some of these plants sell for more money and the seeds can be found around town. You can also purchase many of these plants at the grocery store to be planted.
| Plant | Max Sell Value For 1 | Max Harvest Size |
|---|---|---|
| Potato | 28 | 15 |
| Onion | 28 | 25 |
| Pomegranate | 32 | 50 |
| Lime | 36 | 40 |
| Plum | 28 | 50 |
| Watermelon | 36 | 10 |
| Bananas | 28 | 50 |
| Carrot | 28 | 20 |
| Cinnamon | 64 | 15 |
| Lavendar | 68 | 15 |
| Licorice | 52 | 15 |
| Sweet Grass | 36 | 15 |
| Avornalino Grapes | 28 | 30 |
| Meloire Grapes | 32 | 30 |
| Spotlight Mushroom | 152 | 15 |
| Greenleaf | 76 | 15 |
| Buzzberry | 72 | 15 |
| Mycenas | 132 | 15 |
| Wonderpetal | 48 | 15 |
Rare Plants
Sims will be able to plant and grow rare plants once they are gardening level 7. These crops tend to be worth more money. You can find some of these items at the grocery store, otherwise, you can find rare seeds around town.
| Plant | Max Sell Value of 1 | Max Harvest Size |
|---|---|---|
| Bell Pepper | 48 | 15 |
| Chamomile | 116 | 15 |
| Garlic | 60 | 30 |
| Ghost Chili | 88 | 15 |
| Cherries | 48 | 50 |
| Pomelo | 60 | 50 |
| Truffles | 168 | 30 |
| Bumbleleaf | 104 | 15 |
| Cranerlet Nuala Grapes | 52 | 30 |
| Gralladina Fran Grapes | 40 | 30 |
| Glow Orbs | 256 | 15 |
Special Plants
Sims will be able to plant special seeds and grow special plants once they have reached gardening level 7. However, some of these require the completion of opportunities in your skill journal. For example, planting eggs and cheese will require the completion of the Uncommonly Good opportunity. You can find special seeds around town, especially near the cemetery.
| Plant | Max Sell Value of 1 | Max Harvest Size |
|---|---|---|
| Egg Plant | 28 | 15 |
| Steak Plant | 80 | 15 |
| Cheese Plant | 20 | 15 |
| Burger Plant | 64 | 15 |
| Money Tree | 800 | Continuous Harvest |
| Life Fruit | 100 | 12 |
| Death Flower | N/A | 1 |
| Flame Fruit | 72 | 20 |
| Plasma Fruit | 120 | 2 |
| Omni Plant | Variable | 25 |
| Forbidden Fruit | N/A | 1 |
Seasons in Sims 3
The addition of the Seasons Expansion pack for the Sims 3 brings four unique seasons into the game. Similar to real life, gardens will not grow well when it’s too cold. Therefore, you will not be able to garden outdoors in the wintertime. To combat this, you have the option of turning off the colder seasons to give the effect of living in a warmer climate. This will allow for a long and continuous growing season. Otherwise, the plants will freeze and go dormant. Alternatively, if you have the Supernatural Expansion, you will have access to Planter Bowls. Planter Bowls will allow for your sims to grow plants indoors through the cold seasons!
Gardener Robot
The Sims 3: Into The Future Expansion brought many new additions to the game. One addition that impacts gardening is the Gardener Robot called RoBotany Gardener. This is a plumbot robot that has a trait chip for the gardening skill installed. You will need to have a bot building skill of at least level 7 in order to create this robot. The robot will be proficient in tending to the garden and fertilizing. This makes your job a whole lot easier!