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[Jammer196]

I've been trying to get into this game, and I've kept at it for longer than I expected to, but now I've run into a wall. I've been reading tutorials, so I understand a lot of the simple stuff, but I don't understand farming. I don't think I should continue without knowing how to farm.

I don't get how to plant the seeds I embarked with (or how to get that picture to show up). Also, I made my fortress in White Sand. It is my understanding, I should have made it in stone, but I'm not sure how important this is. I can restart my whole fortress over again, because most of my time spent with this game has been reading tutorials.

[masonsmith]

Alright so to farm you need a couple things:
1. a farm plot built press b->p->u/m till desired size the enter.
2. You need a farmer (a dwarf with the fields labor enabled.
3. You need to select the farm (first press q) the you need to select the crop you want to grow in each season.
That's it fertilization isn't worth it in my opinion.
Now as to building your fortress in stone I don't like to do this as it makes building rooms quickly difficult if you dig down enough z levels you will find stone and possibly metal.

[Edmus]

A farm is like a building, it can only be built on soils (this includes clay, mud, loam and sand). To grow the best foods build it underground, you will want to resize it, the buttons for that are given to you. A farmer will eventually build it, once she's done that, push q and select the farm. This brings up the farm plot settings, a,b,c,d to select what season, +/- and enter to select the crop. All the other settings are useless. Grow plump helmets in all seasons as you are just starting and you can't eat most of the others. Make sure to build lots of rock pots or you will run out of room for your booze. That's all there is to the basics.

[Jammer196]

I have made a farm plot on soil outside, but when I press q (sorry if it's not q) and go over it to see all the stuff I can plant, but the seeds I embarked with don't show up. I also got the picture to work if that helps.

[Naryar]

You are trying to farm subterranean crops outside. That's your problem. Everything you can bring from embark are subterranean crops.

That's why cave wheat is called cave wheat.

If you want an outside farm then build it on either outside soil (NOT rock) or grass. You'll need to gather some plants as well (activate plant gathering on a few dwarves, and make a plant gathering designation). When you have your plants, you will either wait for dwarves to eat them (depending on plants, not all can be eaten raw), or process them (by making booze or milling the plant or processing the plant).

That will produce seeds of the plant, and then you can plant them.

If you want an inside farm, you must build in on inside soil (NOT rock), inside grass (you will see that once you breach the caverns), or muddied inside rock. Mud is left by water.

Inside farms are safer, generally, and easier to build in your case since you have seeds already. Dig a bit inside the white sand and make a plot in there.

Building your fortress in sand is totally possible, but it is better to make dining rooms (designated from a table) and rooms (designated from a bed) in rock, because rock is more valuable. And you can smooth it, and engrave it.

[Magistrum]

Right, so you build your farm plot.
like that image, all the possible plants are show, not only the ones you have seeds of.
You built the farm plot above ground, and it's showing above ground crops. You selected subterranean seeds, dig out a room underground and create a farm plot there, then they should appear.
Ninja'd

[Jammer196]

I haven't tried to an underground farm yet, but I still don't understand above ground farming. I keep setting the farm plot to plant different plants in Spring, but neither of my farmers move.

[Dracko81]

I haven't tried to an underground farm yet, but I still don't understand above ground farming. I keep setting the farm plot to plant different plants in Spring, but neither of my farmers move.

If it is too late in the season your farmers will not plant a new batch, but instead wait for the next season.  You can check the current season in the status menu "z".

[Jammer196]

I checked the season, and it said it was Early Summer. I was trying to plant Spring plants so I thought that was the problem, but it still doesn't work when trying to plant Summer plants. I feel like there's a really easy explanation that I don't know.

[masonsmith]

press z the go to kitchen then tab do you have the seeds you are trying to plant? next do your farmers have the field labor enabled.

[Naryar]

I checked the season, and it said it was Early Summer. I was trying to plant Spring plants so I thought that was the problem, but it still doesn't work when trying to plant Summer plants. I feel like there's a really easy explanation that I don't know.

gather plants you want to farm
extract seeds from these plants via brewing, plant processing, milling, or eating (NOT cooking)
when you have aboveground crop seeds, plant them

Also all aboveground plants can be planted in whatever season, unlike subterranean plants. Yes, it doesn't make sense, I know.

[Jammer196]

I've been gathering plants almost non-stop since the start of my fortress, but when I go to my kitchen all I see is:

I followed my Herbalist and saw him gather plants and put them in my food stockpile, but it doesn't seem like I'm getting anything.

[Urist McVoyager]

Plant growths are different in different seasons. The only edible ones will look like a % mark in ASCII. Not sure what they look like in the Sprite sets, but looking up the page for that set ought to show you. If you harvest in the wrong season, you'll get the wrong parts, like leaves and stems and such.

[Jammer196]

Wow, this is more complex than I thought it would be. So do I have to wait to be able to get seeds or do I have to specifically look for ones that give me seeds? I definitely feel like I should have some seeds considering how much I've been gathering plants.

[PatrikLundell]

You've got pig tails, cave wheat seeds, sweet pod seeds, rock nut seeds, and plump helemet spawn in your list (plus dimple cups spawn, but they make dye, not food). They are all underground crop seeds, so they should be possible to plant in an underground farm, given the appropriate season (plump helmets work in all seasons).
In order to get seeds from the white millets you have to brew the plants first (in a still). I only care about brewable overground crops, since I end up with too much food anyway, but DON'T cook anything you want to recover seeds from, since cooking destroys seeds. Thus, if chicory can be eaten raw (check the wiki), they you'd have to wait for dorfs to eat the plants to free the seeds before you can plant them.

I also see from the screen that you're using an older version of DF (earlier than 0.40.19 which I'm currently using (latest supported by PyNLP)). A warning about my version is that it lies about seeds, since the seed tab in it doesn't list most overground crop seeds you actually have. To find out if I have overground seeds I have to check the plots to see if the crop can be planted.