how about instead of harvesting the whole field, then doing all the planting, how about the farmer’s plant immediately after harvesting.
Like this: harvest, plant, harvest, plant, harvest, plant …
instead of: harvest, harvest, harvest, harvest, harvest, … then plant, plant, plant, plant, plant, …
3 Likes
Agreed. I believe it could be easily solved by coupling the action of harvesting to planting if the farmer is capable of doing so. I’d also want farmers to prioritize planting over harvesting as well, as I see any amount of of farmland unseeded is wasted time.
1 Like
actually harvesting the whole field the planting the whole plot is better than the current system, where they randomly switch between harvesting and planting. and randomly switching between different plots fields. I just want them to finish the plot that they are currently on before switching to a different plot. please
I have to disagree with you here. While in normal times I would agree that any amount of farmland that goas unseeded is wasted resources. In dire times it’s just more important to get the food off the farm and into the hearthling mouths as soon as possible. That is what I think, anyway.
1 Like
I think the real problem is that only farmers can harvest.
-Allow other hearthlings to harvest things as well.
-Make growing crops a bit harder by having the farmers remove weeds and do trimmings and water them occasionally.
So only a farmer will know what plants need what, but anyone can walk into a field and see that the food is ripe and harvest it.
This makes getting your fields producing the only thing the farmer has to worry about.
3 Likes
Cooks can too.
This would break it for me. Personally, I know how to rebuild anything on a car, know how to drive a semi, and work on computers. But don’t expect me to be able to tell you if your corn or avocado is ripe or not. So how could I expect my Hearthling, especially with a 1 intelligence, to know something I don’t even know anything about?
Is the corn yellow yet? If so, it’s close enough to be worth harvesting. Is it still green? If so, leave it grow a while.
Most of the time, foods ripeness/readiness is very obviously displayed by a change in colour, fragrance, texture or something like that. So most people and hearthlings, even those of “Mind 1” intelligence, would be able to figure out when most crops are ready to harvest. Certain high-level crops could of course be an exception…
There’s another easy way to justify the hearthlings knowing when to harvest, too: the farmer has told them! It could be that once the crops are ripe, the farmer marks them out somehow (e.g. during the last watering stage the farmer plants a little flag or marker); or they could simply be assumed to ask for help with tomorrow’s harvest while they’re sitting around the campfire/chatting to other hearthlings.
Going back to the original suggestion: personally, I dislike the idea of shifting it to a “harvest and immediately replant, move to next ripe plant, repeat” method because it’s very unrealistic. I’d actually prefer to see crops take longer, but have a higher yield, so that storage and inventory management (particularly food) plays a bigger role in the game. At the same time, that would make it even harder for farmers to manage their crops. So I like the idea of everyone getting together for harvest time – it would add something to the hearthling calendar, and create a deeper sense of success when your town is able to bring in the full crop by working together to harvest it.
4 Likes
The corn kernels are typically yellow even when unripe. Some folks also think that when the corn silk is brown and dry the corn ear is ripe, but that is not definitive.
A better way to check if an ear of corn is ripe is to squeeze the tip of the ear. When the kernels are ripe they are plump and delicate, so the gentle squeeze will actually burst a kernel or two – when the corn ear is unripe, no kernels will burst.
I’ve worked on vegetable farms in the past, and, certainly, some of the farm hands were “Mind 1” Hearthlings. 
I don’t think that any given hearthling could walk onto the field and know if a crop were ready to harvest or not. I think a farmer could teach any given hearthling to participate in the harvest, but the hearthling will become an apprentice farmer.
1 Like
I’ll begin work on the corn-squeezing minigame right away!
2 Likes
And to be less trolly, I agree that it makes sense for Hauling-task Hearthlings to help out in the fields. I’d pitch that Farmers make a pass “picking” the food and leaving it on the ground, and then anybody can Haul it to a stockpile/box
3 Likes
I do this myself by unchecking the hauling option for the farmers if I need the crops harvested faster than delivered to the storage or cooks.