Farming that fits your day
Fourteen crops, two growing cycles and a garden you can leave overnight. The Farming rework, its trade-offs and what comes next for Cooking.
Every regular crop in Hearthroot now offers a one-hour or eight-hour growing cycle. You can plant for a shorter session or leave your garden while you work or sleep.
Roughly five to six months into Hearthroot's development, this is the first full rework of Farming's growing cycles. The clearest feedback was that returning every few minutes for Carrots asked too much attention from players in an idle game.
Choose your crop and your schedule
Farming now has 14 regular crops across seven tiers:
| Farming level | Crops |
|---|---|
| 0 | Carrot and Wheat |
| 15 | Onion and Potato |
| 30 | Tomato and Cucumber |
| 45 | Broccoli and Melon |
| 60 | Pumpkin and Corn |
| 75 | Chilli Pepper and Sweet Potato |
| 100 | Eggplant and Cabbage |
Chilli Pepper, Sweet Potato and Eggplant join the garden, while Cabbage returns at level 100. Higher tiers award more Farming XP and have higher seed costs and crop merchant values.
We initially considered pairing one short crop with one long crop at each tier. Feedback highlighted the problem: recipes need specific ingredients. Giving every crop both cycles lets you grow what you need on the schedule that suits you.
Harvests and seeds
A one-hour planting gives seven produce; an eight-hour planting gives 40. Both consume one seed. Regular seeds cost 4-28 Silver from Mara, depending on tier, and sell back for one Silver.
| Daily schedule, per bed | Produce | Seeds used |
|---|---|---|
| Three eight-hour harvests | 120 | 3 |
| Sixteen hourly harvests plus eight hours overnight | 152 | 17 |
The more active example produces about 26.7% more, with greater seed consumption. These figures assume immediate harvesting and replanting without growth bonuses. They compare two new schedules, not the new system against the old one, and are not daily caps. You can mix short and long cycles to suit your day.
Long cycles give more produce per seed; short cycles give more over time. Ready crops wait for collection but do not accumulate extra produce or automatically replant.
Strawberry and growth bonuses
Strawberry remains a separate 15th crop, with rare seeds discovered through the Seed Maker. It no longer requires a Farming level and uses an eight-hour base cycle yielding two to four fruit.
Compost is unchanged: ordinary Compost consumes two per planting for a 15% time reduction; Mycelium Compost consumes one for 25%. Without other bonuses, eight hours becomes six hours and 48 minutes or six hours respectively. Farming level and equipment bonuses apply first, so your timer can be shorter. The chosen cycle still determines the full harvest reward.
Cooking is next
The longer schedule also changes production. Previously, constant five-minute Carrot harvesting averaged 60 per bed per hour; the new hourly cycle gives seven, an 88.3% reduction before bonuses. Someone checking only hourly now collects more than the old four-to-six harvest, but frequent harvesters lose substantial output. That comparison needed more attention before release, especially with Cooking requirements unchanged.
Cooking rework has begun at the design and balance stage. We are reviewing ingredient requirements, batch sizes, fuel, success chances and healing, including Wheat becoming Flour and Bread and the different needs of vegetable, fish and mushroom meals. The aim is for long-cycle Farming to support a useful food supply, with hourly planting providing extra ingredients. Other crop uses and selling income also need consideration.
No Cooking balance changes are live yet. Final quantities are undecided, and the follow-up is being planned around preserving existing crops, seeds and plantings without another wipe.
A starting point we can improve
Players also suggested four-hour and 24-hour options, continued production after maturity, and automatic replanting. We started with two cycles to address the frequent-clicking problem with a simpler system. Those alternatives, and yield bonuses that preserve predictable timers, remain possibilities rather than promised features.
Existing plantings were cleared when the rework launched; beds, upgrades, inventory and other progress were retained. Harvest All and Plant All keep their existing paid unlock, and no Replant button was added.
Tell us how the new schedule fits your day and which ingredients run short. That experience will help guide Cooking and the next Farming balance pass.