Farming

Farming is a skill in which players grow crops using seeds and harvest useful items from them, or more commonly, harvest the plant itself. The crops grown range from the standard staples of vegetables, fruit and fruit trees, herbs, hops, to more exotic and unusual crops such as wood-bearing trees, cacti, and mushrooms. The harvested items have wide range of uses, but are mostly used to train Herblore or Cooking, or simply eaten as food. Many players sell their harvest for a significant profit.

Once players have reached the intermediate level range and beyond, they can begin to plant wood-bearing trees. Player grown trees function just like their standard equivalents, which can be chopped down and regenerate after a short period of time to yield Woodcutting experience and logs. Player grown woodcutting trees have the added benefit of being only accessible to the player who grew it, which means that players will not need to compete to gather their own tree's wood.

Farming Level Up Sound

General overview
The first thing any player will do when they begin training this skill is to rake away the weeds from one of the many farming patches found scattered around RuneScape. Once cleared, players have the option of applying compost to the patch BEFORE planting their seeds, which will decrease the chance of the crop becoming diseased, and will also possibly increase the yield of the crop once it reaches maturity. Players can also cast the Fertile Soil spell from the Lunar spellbook at any point during the plant's growth cycle to apply supercompost.

Compost can be bought, but is not cheap; it is usually obtained by placing a total of 15 weeds or various other unwanted vegetables into one of the compost bins. Supercompost, which results in an even higher yield and further lowers chances of disease, is obtained by filling the compost bin with higher level farming produce such as pineapples, watermelons, calquats, coconuts, and high end herbs.

Seeds are usually easy to obtain. They can be bought from players and stalls, stolen via Thieving or obtained as drops from an enormous variety of monsters. Any lower or intermediate level seed is usually dirt cheap, ranging from 1-20 coins each, while the higher level seeds, such as tree, fruit tree, and especially upper end herb seeds, are usually thousands of coins each, if not more.

After growing for a pre-set period of time crops will mature and can then be harvested, provided that the crops have not become diseased and died while growing. Once planted, crops grow even if the player is not online, so one can plant a seed and come back at any time. Once the crops are fully grown they will remain in the patch indefinitely until harvested; that is, they will not die once fully matured.

Although this would seem to imply that players can simply plant their seeds and go back to their lives, there is a problem with this tactic. At lower levels, unattended crops are extremely unlikely to live long enough to reach maturity unattended. Even at relatively high levels there will always be a significant chance that crops will sicken and die. Therefore, all levels are recommended to pay nearby gardeners to watch crops. Doing so prevents the selected crops from dying, thus guaranteeing their reaching maturity for harvest.

Gardeners all charge for their services, but not in coins. The price that they ask depends on the crop that the player asks them to watch. For example, the price for protecting a patch of potatoes is 2 buckets of compost while the price for protecting a patch of onions is 1 sack of potatoes. Unfortunately, Gardeners will not watch herbs or flowers. Players can, however, unlock a single herb patch which is perpetually protected from disease, for free, by completing My Arm's Big Adventure.

Getting Started
Notice: It is a common mistake for players who are new to members and/or farming to wait next to their patch for the crop they have planted to mature to the point where it can be harvested. However, many crops take more than an hour to grow fully, and most introductory crops take over half an hour. Do not waste your time standing near the farming patches wondering when your crops will do anything; instead, find another skill to train nearby such as woodcutting or fishing, and check back in on your patch at regular intervals, usually about every 5–8 minutes, to water your patch and make sure it isn't diseased.

A good way to jumpstart your farming is to do the quest Fairy Tale I - Growing Pains. The experience reward will raise level 1 Farming to level 17. By doing the following quests in the series (which require a substantially higher farming level), players will also receive a pair of magic secateurs which, when wielded, will increase the yield of crops by 10% while harvesting. See Farming training for more information on levelling up.

Tools
For farming there a certain tools you will need to use, whether its raking weeds from a plot using a rake or digging up dead plants with a spade. Below is a table of the basic tools and their uses.

You can buy a lot of these tools along with compost in farming shops located below.


 * North of Catherby


 * North west of Port Phasmatys


 * North of Ardougne


 * South east of Falador

Tool storage
At any farming patch you will come across a Tool leprechaun whose job is to look after your farming tools.

You can store the following:


 * 1 Rake.


 * 1 Seed dibber.


 * 1 Spade.


 * 1 Trowel.


 * 1 secateurs (enchanted also).


 * 1 watering can (8).


 * 1-4 scarecrow.


 * 1-31 Bucket.


 * 1-255 Compost and Super compost.

Seeds
Seeds are essetial in training the skill of farming and the only way you can get them in various ways.


 * Pickpocketing Master Farmers


 * Stealing from Seed stalls


 * Monster drops


 * Bird's nest


 * Purchasing from other players

Compost
Patches treated with compost are less likely to become diseased.

To create compost you will need around 15 pieces of organic material, weeds and rotten fruit work. Put this in a Compost bin near a patch and close the lid and wait for around 60 minutes. Then, with an inventory of 15 empty buckets you can fill them all up with compost.

Supercompost is created in a similar way but the organic materials are different. For example you could use various herbs, berries and fruits. Supercompost also yields more crops than ordinary Compost.

Patches
There are many different patches where you can plant and grow different bushes, flowers, herbs, trees an so on. The patches are located all over Runescape.

Plants are categorised as:


 * Allotment


 * Hops Patch


 * Fruit tree patch


 * Tree patch


 * Bush patch

Allotment patches
Allotments are the most commonly used patches patches in the game. There are four allotment patches in total throughout RuneScape. Players may pay gardeners to protect vegetables and fruits, however it is not possible to protect the herb and flower patches. Gardeners are paid using other vegetables or produce the player has farmed or otherwise obtained.

All these patches have:


 * 2 patches to vegetables/fruits


 * 1 flower patch


 * 1 herb patch


 * 1 compost bin


 * 1 Gardener

Below is a table of their locations.
 * Allotments - Blue


 * Flower patches - Yellow


 * Herb patches - Red

Hops patches
These patches are used to get ingredients to brew different drinks via the Cooking skill. Also hops patches have 4 different locations. Also these have a gardener that can watch after your crops.


 * North of Lumbridge


 * Northwest of Seer's Village


 * In Yanille


 * Isle of Entrana

Tree patches
These patches are the patches you can grow your own tree in for Woodcutting. To grow trees you need to plant them in a plant pot to get a sapling. After that you plant it in the tree patch. This grants much experience, and is the second best experience for farming. It is 5 different tree patches in 2007scape.


 * Behind Lumbridge Castle


 * In Falador Park


 * In Varrock Palace


 * In Taverley


 * In Tree Gnome Stronghold (Next to the Agility Course)

All of them have a gardener, and it is recommended that you pay him to protect your tree.

Fruit tree patches
Fruit tree patches are the best training for farming. This grants much experience but it takes 12 hours to grow a single tree. Also here it is 5 different patches.


 * In Tree Gnome Village (very near the tree patch)


 * East of Catherby


 * West of Tree Gnome Maze


 * North of Brimhaven


 * In Lletya (requires Mourning's Ends Part I) (This plot is not available in 2007 as far as I can tell)

These also have a gardener, and it is highly recommended that you pay them to protect your tree here.

Things asked as payment:

Apple tree - 9 sweetcorn (Noted or unnoted)

Banana Tree - 4 baskets of apples

Bush patches
These patches are not used very often, and can be found 4 places around in 2007scape. The berries you get, is used to Cooking and Herblore.


 * Outside Champion's Guild


 * In Rimmington


 * South of Ardougne


 * Isle of Etceteria (requires Throne of Miscellania)

It is also a gardener here to watch over your patch for payment.

Quest XP
Here are a list of quests  that gives farming experience:


 * 1000 = Recipe for Disaster


 * 3500 = Fairytale I - Growing Pains


 * 5000 = Forgettable Tale of a Drunken Dwarf


 * 5000 = Garden of Tranquillity


 * 7000 = Rum Deal

You can get a total of 21500 farming experience from quests.

Important things to remember
There are many different types of plants and farming crops you can farm it just depends on your level and the location of the patches.