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[Dreggon]

I thought there would be some pools but no, nothing. I have soil underground, but nothing grows on it, even if I try to plant.

How do I make this work? !!Fun!! isn't an option, my dwarves will starve before they get down there.

[Lagslayer]

You can try doing above ground farming if you get some seeds. Or try digging down to the caverns.

[Lortath]

For outside crops, you need a ''light'', ''above ground'' and soil tile
You can farm without water if you bought outside crops seeds from caravan, and live with happy dwarfs and a full food stockpile (Dwarfs love sun berries)

Just channel the ground over your underground soil farm, and build floor over.

[Dreggon]

So without water, the only option for underground farming is digging down to the caverns and hoping for mud?

[Lagslayer]

That or utilize an aquifer.

[Haedrian]

Well, if you're not above 'cheating' there's a Utility you can use to spawn water for you (dfhack).

Or you can use the mud in the caverns - which is a good way of getting your fort killed by the way.

Or you can find an underground pool/river or whatever and find a way of getting it to a safer place than the creature infested mess the caverns are.

[NW_Kohaku]

Unless you live in the desert, just turn on herbalism, and designate the entire area you think is safe to explore.  Even if you do live in the desert, herbalism works in the caverns, although it's obviously more dangerous.  Just try to wall in a good-sized chunk of a cavern you hope is safe, and you can gather plenty of edible things that grow like weeds down there.

Anyway, aboveground farms don't require water, so if you can herbalism some food, and hence seeds, you can just start a farm up there.  You need to do it in soil, though, but it's fine to build a wall around a decent-sized farm plot (5x10 is plenty) and just till the dirt.  You can even put a roof over it, and it becomes a "greenhouse"... made of microcline.

[Girlinhat]

Wait, above ground seeds don't need mud?  Geeze, I've been doing it the hard way this whole time...

[elf-fondling human]

Or you could dig down a few levels and hope some random mushrooms spawn

[Berserkenstein]

Wait, above ground seeds don't need mud?  Geeze, I've been doing it the hard way this whole time...

They don't need mud, but they need at least some grass.  I pour water over spots anyway to plug up holes without grass.  Sun berry farms are pretty awesome.

[Lagslayer]

They need soil. Grass just happens to grow over soil.

[NW_Kohaku]

Aboveground farms are very easy to set up, but they can have annoying things like tree sprouts or pebbles in the way that block off making neat rows, so you might need to send a few dwarves trampling things, or dig a pit so that it's nice smooth soil with no growth over it.