Quick Links
While it’s since become a staple of the franchise, gardening was first introduced toThe Simsin the Unleashed expansion, bringing our Sims and their beloved furry friends out into the yard to get in touch with nature together, offering a few different crops to grow and harvest at home.
After investing in a few gardening plots and the seeds to go in them, put a scarecrow on the lot or entrust pest control to your new pet cat, and you’ll have a pantry full of fresh produce grown from your own garden in The Sims 1 in no time.
How To Start A Garden
Buy Seeds And Gardening Plots
Introduced in Unleashed, your Sims are able toplant and tend to cropson their home lotwith a bit of careful planning and attention. The Sims Legacy Collection comes withsix total cropsfor your Sims to grow:carrots, elderberries, grapes, green beans, lettuce, and tomatoes, with elderberries and grapes largely used for nectar-making as part of the Makin' Magic expansion.
You’ll need to head out to one of the public spaces andbuy standard seeds from a seed rack. Though you may find these displays scattered throughout the downtown areas, your best bet is to go toCuster’s Marketin theOld Towndistrict, which has not only seeds but all the rest of your gardening needs covered. Meanwhile, you’ll need to go to amarket location in Magic Townand purchase fromthoseseed racks to buy Elderberry and Grape Sprigs.
While lettuce and carrots will need to be replanted each time you harvest them, the other crops will regrow when tended to, requiring only one seed to produce plenty of crops. To save your Sim a few trips to the public lots to restock on seeds, you may be wise to invest in plants that regrow automatically, especially once you’ve gotten the hang of tending to a garden.
Like in later entries in the Sims series, you’ll need tobuy a gardening plotfor your home lot before you get down to earth and planting your garden. If you’re playing in the Legacy Collection, you’ll find a handful of different gardening plotsin build mode, and which one you’ll need to purchase depends on which crops you’re trying to grow - the two plotseach grow different crops. The Insta-Plot Victory Garden is for your standard veggies, while the As the Plot Thickens grows the fruits needed for nectar-making.
As the Plot Thickens
you’re able to’t cross-plant your seeds between the two types of gardening plots in The Sims 1, so be mindful of where you’re planting which seed and which gardening plots you’re puchasing to plant them in.
With any seed in your Sim’s inventory, click the gardening plot and choose which seed you’d like to plant. You can plantone seed per gardening plot. Thankfully, while the Sims in the original game were much more limited by objects in their path blocking them from walking, you canwalk over garden plots, so you don’t need to save much space between them.
How To Tend To And Harvest Crops
Got your seeds in the ground? The first part of your work is complete, but the gardening has only just begun. Your Sim will need toweed and water the gardenregularlyto keep the plants healthy as they grow, which can take some work when your needs alone are already tricky to contend with! Additionally, you’ll need to worry aboutfending off garden pestslike gophers or rabbits who can and will eat your crops right from the garden plots.
If you’ve gota pet cat, then letting them out will take care of that pesky pest problem, or you could choose toput a scarecrow nearbyto keep the rodents at bay. Unlike the gardening plots that come from the build mode, scarecrows are considered a Decoration, so you’ll find them in buy mode instead. If you’re trying to limit access to your garden, try building a fence with only one access point into the garden, and place the scarecrow nearby to fend off unwanted visitors.
During the growing process, you can purchase and applyPlant Tonicto your crops after talking to Gardener Bob at Custer’s Market. It’s §35 per bottle and can easily help your crops grow faster and more fertile. It might also kill your crops, but you’ve got to take some risks to grow some mega-crops.
Once you’ve plucked your crops from the garden in The Sims, you’ll have two options for what to do with your yield: you can eithersell your cropstoearn some simoleonsby heading back to Custer’s Market and interacting with theVegano Market Cart. If you’d rather keep your harvest at home, you can stash fruits and veggiesin a kitchen pantryto keep them at home and use them for meal prep (or magic use).
Even if you have no crops presently in your pantry, you may always grab a snack from it either way!
