At the start of a new game we all set about our hearthlings farm plots, I find that a 11x6 for the 3 starting veggies gives the farmer time to plow and plant, before a new dawn, all 3 for an assortment of veggeis with a few moments left to help pick up stuff laying around (wood), then late game move to the max 11x11 when they have enough farmers.
Was curious as to what others did or thought about farm plots?
I like the current 11x11 sizes, with the empty stripes in the middle.
I normally start with one 11x11 of turnips, than when that gets complete and the farmer has nothing more to do besides wait I add the next crop, and keep that behavior until all crops are placed.
Then I trim those that are over producing (turnips, carrots, trees) because I hate having an overflow of one type and nothing of the other crop. I end up with different sized areas for each crop.
Most of the time it is 1 row(11x1) of trees, 2 rows for each flower, 2 for silkweed, 5 rows for fast food crops and full 7 rows (11x11) for slow crops as corn and wheat.
I find the most optimized farm slots are multiple 5x5ās w/ a road of 1-2 wide between them.
So for example, with a slot of 24x24 you can have 16 5x5 plots. with a road 1 between them and 2 wide through the middle in a cross formation. Now, these 16 5x5 plots allow for 240 crops to be grown.
Whereas using 11x11(the max size) you can have 4 11x11 plots with a road of 2 wide between the middle in a cross.
These 4 11x11 plots allow for 264 crops to be grown. Now while this is more, I find eventually over time the roads between the 5x5 plots allow for farmers to get around better, resulting in more crops gained.
This is my preferred pattern(gray being road, green being crop spots, and brown being empty rows. Blue is just the border between spaces, red is to show 1 plot).
As opposed to this.
I like to build my farms really, really large ā not right from the start, but once I get established I love the look of massive fields. For me, Stonehearth is all about the aestheticsā¦ I have other games to play when I want a more detailed simulation; but while Stonehearth is still being built up Iām most interested in the features that are already complete. At the moment, that basically means building really pretty things ā thatās the only part of the game experience which doesnāt require more things to be hooked into it later in the development. So, while I wait for those things to come (and I know theyāre coming in good time, Iām aware that this is a long journey), Iām enjoying building really, really pretty things lol.
Because Iām absolutely finnicky about tiny details, I canāt stand having that ādouble lineā of crops when two max-sized farms are beside each other. So, I generally build 10x11 farms so that I can run as many of them side-by-side as I want, and theyāll look like a single massive, continuous field.
Of course, this means that efficiency goes out the window. Fortunately, I rarely need to worry about that ā by the time Iām building my massive farms, Iāve got a stable setup. In the early game, I go for something much closer to @Aviexās design, although I donāt put the roads in since the ātemporaryā farms will be built very close to the ātemporaryā kitchen anyway.
Temporary roads can be destroyed rather easily as of Alpha 18.
So even temporary farms can have them, I usually build mine out of wood, also adds a tiny boost of āvalueā to your town, super helpful early on.
Thatās a good point, even though I normally start out with a ācampsiteā early on it wouldnāt be a bad idea to make the whole camping ground a large road surface. It can be removed later on as you say, and it would mean that crafters can quickly carry things where theyāre neededā¦
Iāll have to give that a try in my next game, thanks for the tip/idea!
I used to not do it because I hated the stupid holes theyād leave in the ground if you removed the building.
But last I checked when you remove a road now it reverts the space to the old dirt block.
Just to point out, the vector of optimization is not limited to gain/efficiency alone.
For example, at many times, I prefer to optimize : management.
In which I will knowingly tolerate inefficiencies just to make the management simpler etc 
One possible example (I rarely do it though) is that I can toggle larger farms on and off in larger units for the same effect (proportionate to their gains). e.g. toggling a 4 5 x 5 farm plots requires 4 times the āworkā of toggling a 1 11 x 11 farm plot. Also: building roads for farms is troublesomeā¦ lol.
Other possible vectors of consideration:
aesthetics, whether intrinsic or āmatchingā to a theme
contextual efficiency. Efficiency individually (just the farm alone) may be āsub-optimalā, but actually produces a more optimal results when taking in other non farm factors, such as proximity/direction of storage, workshops, or even factors like defenses.