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[Unit88]

I noticed that a lot of times my brewer cancels his brewing job saying there are no plants to brew, but when I check both the stocks and the kitchen menu I see a bunch of plump helmets. Similarly my planter decided to cancel planting plump helmets saying there are no plump helmet spawns even though I had about 200. I definitely did not forbid anything, so that can't be the problem.
Also while I'm talking about plants I want to ask how big do you usually make your farms and what do grow you in the different seasons?

[NullForceOmega]

This has to do with objects in containers, sometimes when a dwarf decides to take a hauling job, they take the whole container to complete the job, so the objects inside become 'inaccessible' until the container is returned to the stockpile.

I use several 4x4 plots, much larger than that results in wasted plants due to harvesting and growing speeds, you can easily end up with unharvested plants while your planters are busy (and unharvested plants rot, and return no seeds.)

[PatrikLundell]

I avoid he barrel issue with still/thresher raw materials by using a quantum stockpile for them. Another alternative is to use a fairly large barrel-less stockpile. Another thing that makes the barrel issue worse is the standard setting of mixing food in barrels. That means the barrel may be locked out for any food transport reason.

I start with a 3*3 brewables plot and a 5*5 threshables plot. The brewables are complemented with single tile over ground plots set to grow one brewable type of plant per season (and different plants on different plots). After a year or two the 3*3 plot is replaced with a single tile plot. The pig tail plot is removed once a silk farm gets going, and pig tails are then produced in the remaining underground brewables plot for brewing purposes. Most of the food requirements of the fortress are provided by animals and eggs.

What grows in what seasons? Build a plot and check (that's what I do, since I don't remember the details off the top of my head, and it's too easy to check to spend the effort to commit it to memory), or look at the wiki. Currently only underground crops are season dependent, while overground ones grow all year around.

Ah, be careful with Dimple Cups. Those are useful only for dye production, since they cannot be either eaten or brewed.

[Unit88]

I avoid he barrel issue with still/thresher raw materials by using a quantum stockpile for them. Another alternative is to use a fairly large barrel-less stockpile. Another thing that makes the barrel issue worse is the standard setting of mixing food in barrels. That means the barrel may be locked out for any food transport reason.

I start with a 3*3 brewables plot and a 5*5 threshables plot. The brewables are complemented with single tile over ground plots set to grow one brewable type of plant per season (and different plants on different plots). After a year or two the 3*3 plot is replaced with a single tile plot. The pig tail plot is removed once a silk farm gets going, and pig tails are then produced in the remaining underground brewables plot for brewing purposes. Most of the food requirements of the fortress are provided by animals and eggs.

What grows in what seasons? Build a plot and check (that's what I do, since I don't remember the details off the top of my head, and it's too easy to check to spend the effort to commit it to memory), or look at the wiki. Currently only underground crops are season dependent, while overground ones grow all year around.

Ah, be careful with Dimple Cups. Those are useful only for dye production, since they cannot be either eaten or brewed.

Just noticed that my question had a word missing. I wanted to know what you grow not what generally grows, but thanks for answering anyway (and not being a douche, although I have a feeling no one on this fourm is a douche (except maybe to dwarves but who isn't))

[PatrikLundell]

No worries, Unit88. A lot of people are more or less completely new to DF, so questions that seem silly are often sincere results of newbiness. Since we want to infect as many as possible with DFitis, we try to draw them in.

The general recommendation is to start with Plump Helmets on embark, because they are versatile and have high productivity. I've switched my profile to grow Cave Wheat and Sweet Pods for one season each and Plump Helmets the other two, with Pig Tails on the side for threshing only. I never bother with Quarry Bushes or Dimple Cups because neither can be brewed.
There are two reasons I rotate crops over seasons from embark:
- Seed availability. I start with 9 seeds of each usable crop, but seeds can easily be locked up in unprocessed produce, so by switching to a different crop the next season I get a fresh set of initial seeds for that crop. Later on when your farmer gets some skill you shouldn't have any physical lack of seeds. I tend to build my still in spring or summer, but often don't appoint anyone to use it until autumn, which means seeds are released only through dorfs eating the produce raw.
- Booze variety. Call it a fixation or role playing, but I try to give the dorfs the widest possible range of booze to chose from.

Whether you grow overground crops or not depends on play style and the nature of the biome. You can often find a fairly wide variety of plants topside through Herbalism. I normally designate the whole map for plant gathering on embark and let unbrewable plants be cooked. Apart from brewable plants, I also tend to have a 3*3 plot with overground threshables (rotating over seasons if several types are available). For the sake of it, I also collect dye plants, but just keep a small number of them. The initial plant gathering designation doesn't catch everything, however, because some plants are season dependent in the wild (various berries, for instance), so I try to complement my stock using manual single plant designations later on.

At a later stage, I try to build an orchard, i.e. a completely enclosed several z levels high area in which I chop down all trees that are not fruit bearing, with the aim of getting one of each kind. This serves very little purpose from a practical perspective, though, since you should have more than enough booze as it is.

One problem I have is to balance the food and booze production, because I tend to get a huge over production (having more than 10 years worth of food and booze in stock is a bit much).

[Unit88]

No worries, Unit88. A lot of people are more or less completely new to DF, so questions that seem silly are often sincere results of newbiness. Since we want to infect as many as possible with DFitis, we try to draw them in.

The general recommendation is to start with Plump Helmets on embark, because they are versatile and have high productivity. I've switched my profile to grow Cave Wheat and Sweet Pods for one season each and Plump Helmets the other two, with Pig Tails on the side for threshing only. I never bother with Quarry Bushes or Dimple Cups because neither can be brewed.
There are two reasons I rotate crops over seasons from embark:
- Seed availability. I start with 9 seeds of each usable crop, but seeds can easily be locked up in unprocessed produce, so by switching to a different crop the next season I get a fresh set of initial seeds for that crop. Later on when your farmer gets some skill you shouldn't have any physical lack of seeds. I tend to build my still in spring or summer, but often don't appoint anyone to use it until autumn, which means seeds are released only through dorfs eating the produce raw.
- Booze variety. Call it a fixation or role playing, but I try to give the dorfs the widest possible range of booze to chose from.

Whether you grow overground crops or not depends on play style and the nature of the biome. You can often find a fairly wide variety of plants topside through Herbalism. I normally designate the whole map for plant gathering on embark and let unbrewable plants be cooked. Apart from brewable plants, I also tend to have a 3*3 plot with overground threshables (rotating over seasons if several types are available). For the sake of it, I also collect dye plants, but just keep a small number of them. The initial plant gathering designation doesn't catch everything, however, because some plants are season dependent in the wild (various berries, for instance), so I try to complement my stock using manual single plant designations later on.

At a later stage, I try to build an orchard, i.e. a completely enclosed several z levels high area in which I chop down all trees that are not fruit bearing, with the aim of getting one of each kind. This serves very little purpose from a practical perspective, though, since you should have more than enough booze as it is.

One problem I have is to balance the food and booze production, because I tend to get a huge over production (having more than 10 years worth of food and booze in stock is a bit much).

In my last fortress I also had overproduction but only food. I got really low on booze when there were about 80 dwarves (I did not expect a 29 person migration wave) and I only had two 3X3 and a 2X3 farm. Then I couldn't even do anything about it because a desert titan appeared and killed everyone

[PatrikLundell]

Well, at least you didn't have to deal with the booze shortage
Blocking brewables from cooking is important, in my view. Also, the next time a Titan knocks on the front door, don't open, 'cause it ain't selling cookies 

[Unit88]

Well, at least you didn't have to deal with the booze shortage
Blocking brewables from cooking is important, in my view. Also, the next time a Titan knocks on the front door, don't open, 'cause it ain't selling cookies 

Well, I didn't exactly have a door or anything that would stop it and my 10 men squad just died when faced with him even though they were training for years. Now I'm in a new fort and I'll have a bunch of traps and other things, so an actual defence. Although now my dwarves started lying about rocks saying that there are none even though there are a bunch just lying around and they weren't designated to be dumped either.

[PatrikLundell]

Drawbridges are your friends. I use a lot of airlocks (two drawbridges at each end of a corridor) with cage traps in between.

Stones:
- Stones can be allocated for other things than dumping, such as the construction of a building that noone has the skill to build yet, or walls waiting to be built.
- Check the kind of stone. Stone specified as Economic may be blocked from usage in the stocks screen (there's a stone tab there). Often you have more than enough so you can use the stone for construction as well.

[Unit88]

Drawbridges are your friends. I use a lot of airlocks (two drawbridges at each end of a corridor) with cage traps in between.

Stones:
- Stones can be allocated for other things than dumping, such as the construction of a building that noone has the skill to build yet, or walls waiting to be built.
- Check the kind of stone. Stone specified as Economic may be blocked from usage in the stocks screen (there's a stone tab there). Often you have more than enough so you can use the stone for construction as well.

I figured out since then. For some reason the game decided to forbid all of my stone (I checked on the stocks screen) Also since then it did it again and I don't know why. I'll check the stone tab later maybe that's what's causing it.

[Dunamisdeos]

Lying is a crime in Zanekzagel. We put all liars in the truth pit for testing. Sometimes wild bears are also tested. We only have one pit, and not all day to test.

[Albedo]

Not every item will tell you if it's already been targeted for a task - in fact, the ones in workshops may(?) be the only ones that are. And that includes being Hauled to a stockpile (altho' a quick [f]orbid/un[f]orbid will cancel such a Hauling job).  If you're building a wall or something similar, it's possible that every one of those stones has already been earmarked to go somewhere - so they're not available, and if you move or re-designate them that Construction order will get canceled. 

Use [d], {b} to check what's been [f]orbidden or marked for [d]umping - d,b,d or d,b,f to mark everything in a rectangle of your designation, and d,b,c to re[c]laim it all. (All in the sub-menu after [d]{b}.)

(Edit - the "[ b ] triggered bold, had to change brackets.)

[PatrikLundell]

The stock screen settings for stone does not marks stones as forbidden, it just makes selected types of stone uneligible for "mundane" usage. It is possible to use blanket 'f''orbid orders from the regular stocks screen for items, so by going to the stocks inventory subcategory stone you can forbid or unforbid all existing stones of a given type.
It's also possible to use the area order as descried by Albedo. Note that the 'f'orbid/un'f'orbid sequence has to be interspersed with a short unpause of the game (so accidentally forbidding an item and then correcting the mistake while still paused will not destroy the item's designated usage).
You can also do all kind of things via DFHack. Regardless, I think you're actually the cause of the forbidding by accidentally triggering it.