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Gardening, The Garden Club, and More!

This article has all the info you could possibly want on gardening in Seasons, and everything related to it!

Gardening

Where do I buy gardening stuff?

Build Mode - Garden Center - Gardening

Where do I find fruit trees?

Apple trees, orange trees, and lemon trees can all be found under the same area in the catalog as the other gardening objects - Build Mode - Garden Center - Gardening.

How do I plant stuff?

Place the "Pleasant Earth Dirt" dirt/garden soil from the Gardening area of the catalog. You click and drag it across the ground just like a floor tile.
Then, in live mode, have a sim click on the plot of ground. They can choose to fertilize the plot of ground before planting (or use compost to fertilize, if they have a compost maker with some compost in it), or just plant a seed. It is better to fertilize your soil than to plant in unfertilized soil. Using compost is better than using bags of fertilizer ($10).

Why can my sim only plant tomatoes?

Sims have to have gardening skill badges in order to plant more types of plants. The more badges you have, the more types of stuff you'll be able to plant.

How do I get skill badges in gardening?

You'll gain skill badges as you take care of your garden. Tend to your plants and your sim will gain gardening skill. Eventually, they'll gain badges - bronze, silver, and gold, which will allow them to plant more types of plants, and garden more effectively.
Once you get the gold badge, you'll be able to talk to your plants, to improve their condition very quickly.

What are the different things that can be planted as my sims gain gardening badges?

No Badges: Tomatoes
Bronze Badge: Strawberries and Cucumber
Silver Badge: Pole Beans, Pepper and Eggplant
Gold Badge: Talk to plants interaction, the best way of improving a plant's condition fast. Plant sims automatically have gold gardening badges, so they make excellent gardeners.

What do I do once my stuff is planted?

Keep it watered (water only when Water Many comes up, or allow the sprinklers to do the watering for you), tend to your plants when they need it as soon as possible, and keep the bugs away. If you have a gold gardening badge, you can talk to your plants to improve their condition.
Eventually (after a few sim days - it varies depending on type of plant), your plants will bear fruits or veggies. These can range in quality from bland to mouthwatering. You can either sell the produce directly as you harvest it, or let it go into the sim's inventory. The sim can then choose to stock the refrigerator with their own fresh-grown produce. You can also make juice from your produce.
Don't click on the "compost" option on your plants unless you're intending to get rid of them - that means "yank out this plant and throw it in the compost bin" not "add some more compost to this already-planted plant."

My plants look kind of brown and drippy. What does this mean?

If your plant has a brownish look to it and is dripping with water, you've overwatered it. Let it dry out some, and only water when you get the "Water Many" option.

My plants have funky light green jagged stuff at the base. What does this mean?

Those plants need to be tended. Have a sim tend to the plant as soon as possible when you start getting that stuff to keep them as healthy as possible.

My plants have bugs! What do I do?

You can place the Lovely Ladybug Loft (also found under Gardening in the catalog) near plants that have bugs to reduce the pests. They're not instant or 100% effective but they do help a lot. You can also spray your plants with pesticides to kill the bugs, but the effects harm the quality of the fruit. Only spray if you must.

When should I harvest my produce?

You can harvest your produce as soon as the "Harvest" option comes up on your plants - you'll see the fresh produce if you zoom in and look at your plant.
However, it is BEST to harvest your produce when you have a dark green smiley face and it says your plant is Thriving, with either no arrow (quality is steady) or an up arrow (quality is going up).
Make sure you only queue up a few Harvest actions at once. It can take a while to harvest your plants, and while your sim is doing the first few, the quality on ones queued later may be dropping. You may accidentally harvest plants that have dropped in quality, resulting in only "Tasty" quality produce, not "Mouthwatering."
If a plant needs a little bump in quality before it can be harvested, have a sim with a gold gardening badge talk to it. If it hasn't been watered really really recently, you can overwater it a bit (it will go brown and drippy) but this will generally boost the quality.

How do I make compost?

Trash items can be placed into the compost maker to make compost, the best way to fertilize your plants. You can compost the following items:

Newspapers
Trash from your trashcan (you may have to tell them to 'Take out Trash' then cancel the action to get the 'Compost' action on the pile of trash they'll drop once you cancel them taking out the trash, especially if you are using a custom trash can or trash compactor)
Trash from knocked-over trashcans (from grumpy neighbors or dirty dogs)
Busted-up furniture (from naughty dogs that have broken things)
Your plants (click on them and you'll get a Compost option - this rips out your carefully-tended plant!)
Autumn leaves that have fallen from your trees. Have your sim rake the leaves into piles, then either click on the piles individually, or you can click on the compost maker to gather all of the compostable piles of leaves.

How do I use sprinklers?

Sprinklers are an easy, no-fuss way to water your garden. Again, you find them in the Gardening section of the catalog. Place them over your plots of dirt with your plants, so that the sprinkler radius (the pale blue dome) at least partially covers the plots you want watered - if a square is green when placing the sprinklers (i.e. the "footprint" of the object covers that square) then it will be watered by the sprinklers.
Sprinklers work automatically to water your plants - you don't have to turn them on.
You don't gain any talent badges, though, for using sprinklers, and hand-watering better improves the quality of your fruits and veggies. It's an easy way to raise plants, but maybe not the best because of the produce quality and lack of skill gain.
Once your sim has a gold badge, it might be worth it to consider sprinklers. Let the sprinklers handle watering, leaving your sim to tend to bump up the quality. Sims with gold badges tend plants VERY well, and if they need a little boost right before harvesting, you can talk to them.
Sprinklers can break and overwater your plants or cause the room score of your sims to plummet. Watch out for broken sprinklers!

What is the greenhouse for?

The greenhouse protects your plants from the elements and lets you maintain a garden year-round, though trees will go dormant during winter even if placed inside a greenhouse.

So I can put trees in the greenhouse?

Yes! Some people have reported you may need to place the trees first, before the greenhouse, but they should live within it just fine.

Can I put/do I need the Ladybug Loft in the greenhouse?

Yes, and yes, if you have bugs in the greenhouse.

How do I build a greenhouse?

To build a greenhouse, choose the Gardening option in the Garden Center in Build Mode. Then select one of the greenhouse wall options and build them like you would build a normal wall.
Once you have your walls constructed, go up a level, and add a roof with the greenhouse roof tool. Make sure to add a door so your sims can get in. Don't place soil on the tile right inside the door or your sims won't be able to use the door.

Why is the environment score in my garden/greenhouse always red?

Your sprinklers may be broken, which can over-water your plants and cause environment meters to plummet, or your plants may need more tending.
Repair or replace sprinklers, and if the problem persists, try placing some of the low fences (the kind sims can step over) to create a boundary to limit the effects of the low environment score to a smaller area.

Fresh Produce and Juice

How do I stock my fridge with produce?

With the sim that has the produce in their inventory selected, click on the fridge and select Stock.
You must be using a Maxis fridge or one that has been updated to work for Seasons, or you may not have the Stock option available. * Stocking your fridge with fresh produce doesn't give you any more meals to cook with them, but does make meals cooked from the fridge (standard and custom) fresh/more satisfying.

How do I make juice?

First, purchase the Main Squeezer 235X juicer from the catalog. You can find it under Appliances - Small Appliances.
Click on the juicer with the sim selected that has the produce in their inventory, and stock the juicer with produce (fruits, vegetables, or boots).
Once you have enough stocked, if you select the juicer you should be able to mix and match the different produce to make tasty (or not so tasty) juices. If the produce is "mouthwatering" then the juice will have special effects.

What juices can be made?

Apple Juice (3 apples) - finish homework faster.
Beauty Cocktail (2 oranges, 2 cucumber) - love potion.
Eggplant Juice (2 eggplants) - random skill points.
Lemonade (6 lemons) - cools sims down.
Orange Juice (6 oranges) - cures colds.
Orangeade (4 oranges, 2 lemons) - random badge points.
Pepper Punch (2 peppers, 1 pole bean, 1 apple) - energy boost.
Pureed Boot (1 boot) - freak out (sim does random animations), no hunger satisfaction.
Strawberry Lemonade (2 strawberries, 2 lemons) - platinum aspiration.
Strawberry Juice (3 strawberries) - clears furious bit.
Tomato juice (3 tomatoes) - warms sims up.
Vegetable cocktail (1 tomato, 1 cucumber, 1 pepper, 1 pole bean) - build skills faster.

You can also serve juice with 6x the ingredients listed for a single serving.

The Garden Club and the Wishing Well

Where do I get the wishing well? It's not in the catalog!

The wishing well is a reward object - you get it as a reward for getting a Very High score with a garden club review.
You can also get the wishing well using the testingcheats... Type boolProp testingCheatsEnabled true into the cheat console, shift-click on a sim, Spawn - Wishing Well.

What is the Garden Club, and what are the perks?

Garden Club members get discounted seeds and other gardening goodies and can win prizes (including Simoleons) for superior gardens. Once your Sim has some gardening experience, they can apply for membership.

How do I become a member of the Garden Club?

To apply for membership or to request an official rating of your Sims’ garden (they must be a member to get a rating), direct your Sim to talk to a Garden Club representative via the telephone.
When the representative arrives, you'll need to interact with her to get the evaluation started.
Only the sim that requests the evaluation will be inducted into the garden club, if you pass inspection.

What are the factors considered in evaluation for Garden Club membership?

Good:

High quality plants and trees.
Well-tended plants.
Plots that are fertilized or composted - composted is better.
Compost bins - better with compost in them.
Ladybug houses.
Cowplants - better without visible cake.
High priced potted plants, sculptures, fountains, etc.

Bad:

Dead plants.
Under-watered plants.
Plants with bugs
Weeds.
Old newspapers.
Trash.
Flamingo or gnome lawn decorations, which are "cheap and trashy."

How am I scored for garden club membership?

What you get as prizes, and whether or not you get into the Garden Club depend on the number of points you score. You can score points for:

Gardening: -1000 to 700 points.
Landscaping: -1000 to 500 points.
Messes: -1000 to 0 points.

The final score is will fall into one of five levels:

Very low: -3000 to -200.
Low: -100 to 99.
Normal: 100 to 399. If your score is normal or better, you will get into the garden club, and get a prize..
High: 400-699.
Very high: 700-1000

What are the garden club prizes?

Discount on gardening supplies (25% off of greenhouse placement, ladybug houses, sprinklers, seeds and fertilizer).
Simoleons - The amount will be 1.5x your final score.
Wishing Well - If your final score is more than 700.

Why can't I start the evaluation with the garden club representative?

If there are no options that will start the evaluation when clicking on the representative in live mode to interact with her, you likely have a conflicting hack causing a problem. Please see here for more information: Game Help:Seasons Options Missing.

Can I have multiple wishing wells, or multiple reviews by the Garden Club?

You can be reviewed by the Garden Club as many times as you want ... and you can get multiple wells.
Each well gets 5 uses ... but try not to use it TOO much ... or bad things will happen.
If you've been reviewed before by the Garden Club and got a favorable review, if you try to get reviewed again and get a BAD review, your membership gets revoked! EEK!

What are all the options on the wishing well?

Wish for friends: In testing, three random sims spawned with a lifetime and daily relationships meters at 55. Maybe a coincidence, but the sim that made the wish needed three more friends to get a job promotion.
Wish for money: A bag of simoleons fell from the sky and 1000 simoleons were awarded from the bag.
Wish for romance: A sim with a lifetime and daily relationship meter at 75 fell from the sky and kissed (tenderly) the sim who made the wish. Don't do this in a committed relationship if you don't want a LOAD of trouble.
Drink: It has no special effect, just like drinking water from a sink.
After using the wishing well to make a wish, it cannot be used by any sim in the house for five game hours. In testing, the sim that made the wishes had the aspiration meter just a little above negative (almost red) so aspiration level when using the well may or not be a factor in rewards.'

I got accepted into the garden club - why am I not getting the discount on supplies?

The garden club membership is only for a single sim, not the whole lot or family, so only the sim that applied/got accepted will get the discounts on gardening supplies.
It may be worth it to you to do further garden club reviews to get everyone you would like to have gardening become a garden club member.

I've gotten a high enough score, and should have gotten the well, but I can't find it on my lot.

The wishing well is a fairly large object. If there's no room to place it on the lot, it will go into your sim's inventory.

Plant Sims

Can I become a plant sim from gardening?

Yes - but it's fairly rare...
First, adult or elder sims must have sprayed pesticides 10 times on plants on that particular lot. Then, every time you spray after that, there's a 10% chance of your sim being turned into a Plantsim.
Basically, you must be abusing pesticides for this to happen.
It may be easier on premade Maxis lots like the Greenmans as the lot's preexisting "pesticide abuse level" may already be high enough to provide the 10% chance of going Plant.
For a much easier way to become a Plantsim, get Wintermuteai1's PlantSim Mod, which is a potion which will let your sim instantly become a plant sim.

Credits

Thanks go to the following people for adding tips that have been incorporated into this FAQ: squall117, thejarviclan, canoodle, Anjelstar76, megativity13, Frillen, daysies.

Game Help:Gardening