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[Poindexterity]

i recently tried doing an embark with no seeds and no plump helmets to start with, instead a couple bad-ass herbalists brewers and growers and while the miners were doing their thing, these three gathered up all the nearby plants they could find, made liquor out of them real quick like, took whatever seeds they wound up with and built a functional farm in NO time at all, or at least far less time than it would have taken to get an underground farm going.

any problems you guys can forsee for me?

[Cassicotca]

Being cut off your food supply in case of a siege but that can be fixed with walls. Also flying creatures like buzzards.

[Jeoshua]

Defense of said aboveground farm does spring to mind as a possible source of problems.  Use some of that stone to build a wall ALL the way around your farms there, with the only entrance to the enclosure being a stairwell...

Bonus points if you find uses for underground plants and farm them right underneath the aboveground crops.

[Keldane]

Defending "above ground" farms isn't really all that difficult. If you channel out the top layer in the size of the plot you want, then build the farm plot on the exposed soil below, you can floor it over and have it completely enclosed while still counting as outside for the purpose of growing crops. This "greenhouse" can now be accessed by a tunnel from underground.

[Pan]

Although that could be an exploit. After all, it's not realistic or anything. (not that I don't do it. Just that some people consider it an exploit.)

[Funburns]

Or build a simple wall around the farm and roof it over for a hermetic seal. Dwarf Fortress plants will model sunlight dependency better some day, but for now, the ability to grow surface world plants in Inside Dark Above Ground areas may be viewed as an exploit additional difficulty setting accessible to players in the know.

Not that you'd want any ugly buildings poking up out of the terrain over your completely camouflaged mountain home, of course.

[Halnoth]

Although that could be an exploit. After all, it's not realistic or anything. (not that I don't do it. Just that some people consider it an exploit.)

That's rediculous. Simply use glass if you are concerned with a so called exploit. I have used a greenhouse built out of clear glass in many of my mega projects. My latest megaproject has one on top of a sky scraper. It's quite nice.

[Girlinhat]

I also do above ground farms.  It's very easy to get one peasant to run and grab some plants, and as he grabs more he gets experience and is more likely to harvest something useful.  It's a matter of days before he grabs some wild strawberries and prickle berries, maybe fischer berries, except those are cheap and not as good to cultivate.  Alternate strawberries and prickles, and you've got "a variety" of booze that grows in any season.  At the end you've also got a legendary herbalist, and I apply him to be a farmer, makes him easy to see because he flashes, and when I see a farmer being attacked I can decide if it's worth dealing with or let him suffer.  I only have 1 or 2 farmers, who quickly get to legendary +5, and thus they're growing 5-6 stacks of berries, and I can support a population of like 100 with a 3x3 plot and 1 farmer.  Let's not forget that 6 strawberries makes a barrel of 30 booze, which is better than having stockpiles of 5-10 booze.

[Crazy Cow]

I tend to farm aboveground as well. My usual tactic is to channel down to the next soil layer, as has been described, then build a bridge over the hole and a wall around it. Strawberries are always what my forts live off. It is also much simpler than irrigation.

[Girlinhat]

Well, I also do above-ground structures.  I don't have a simple hatch cover, I have a good wall and courtyard leading down to the underground bedrooms.  The 5 layers of soil become grazing land for cattle, then below that it's smoothed and engraved for living space, then dining hall, training barracks, arena, etc, with the lower point used for magma forges, having its own small dining hall and stockpile area.  Most of my actual industry is performed above ground, like butchering, tanning, bonecarving, jewelers, crafts shops, etc.  My forts usually end up like a nail, a flat, broad surface and a narrow, long point going deep underground.  I usually only do underground farms for sweet pods, and then burrow-style cook some syrup, syrup, syrup, and water buffalo roasts, because they produce big stacks of meat.  These get fed to the population, with small prepared meal stockpiles amongst the living spaces, so they're more likely to eat the fine, fine food than raw strawberries.

I think I'm going to mod in strawberry jam, which is produced to barrel at the farmer's shop the same as syrup.

[agatharchides]

 

I tend to farm aboveground as well. My usual tactic is to channel down to the next soil layer, as has been described, then build a bridge over the hole and a wall around it. Strawberries are always what my forts live off. It is also much simpler than irrigation.

You don't have to irrigate underground anymore.

[Girlinhat]

On the soil, that is.  You need to muddy stone, but sand, soil, and clay doesn't need irrigation.

[ZCM]

My favorite thing about above ground crops is they grow in all seasons.

[Hyndis]

Above ground farming is awesome. Just be sure to give your masons some work. Build a nice stone bunker around and above your above ground farm. Iron blocks are preferable, but rock blocks are acceptable.

Rough stone is just undwarvenly.

[jwest23]

Rough stone is just undwarvenly.

I've been trying this approach lately, and it's quite frustrating on two levels.  I never seem to get the blocks I want to keep the structure of an uniform stone type, at least not without a lot of micromanagement.  Lately I've been marking everything else as economic to ease some of the micromanagement pain.  Then, there's the extra waiting step.  It always seems at its worst early on in the embark when I'm doing my level best to secure the site.  I think next go I'm going to put up rough structures first, then put up well-crafted structures after the fact, possibly setting it up so that I'm putting up a well-crafted facade over a rough structure, then tearing down the rough structure from inside.

So this isn't a total derail, when I'm securing any outdoor farming bunker I tend to have a roof consisting of as many floor grates as I can manage.  At the least, it has the feel of something more legitimate.  I have done the glass greenhouse before, too, which at least looks somehow right.