Discover everything you need to know about farming in Windrose, including how to plant and harvest crops.
Farming in Windrose is part of the survival crafting system, where you grow plants and manage resources. This directly connects to systems like food buffs, crafting materials, and base building. Even though Windrose doesn’t rely heavily on hunger systems, food gives combat and stamina buffs, making farming important. Once you progress, farming becomes part of your base production chain, especially when combined with Farming Contractors.
Farming in Windrose
Farming is not available at the start, as it’s a progression-unlocked system in Windrose. The game requires you to unlock farming by mining the Fertile Soil. You build a Seedbed from the build menu using the required materials. Get your hands on the seeds by harvesting wild plants, exploring different islands, and collecting specific crops that drop seeds.
Farming in Windrose
Once you have everything, open the build menu and select the seed you want. Click on the Seedbed tile and place the seed. Crops grow automatically over time after planting the seeds, so just wait in real time or game time. When fully grown, approach the plant and press the ‘E’ key to get the crop item. You don’t need the water to speed up the growing process of the crops.
Ancient Farm
Farming in Windrose creates a renewable source of resources, making it useful for crafting and cooking. Progress through the main story through the Coastal Jungle area and defeat the Coastal Jungle Boss. This lets you get access to the Foothills region for farming.
How to Find Fertile Soil
You can’t find the Fertile Soil everywhere in the world of Windrose. Make your way to the Foothill islands and Ancient Farms scattered across the map to acquire it. Once you find an Ancient Farm, equip any pickaxe and look for patches of broken farmland. You need to mine those patches like a resource node to get Fertile Soil directly as drops.
Get Fertile Soil
I recommend gathering as much as you can carry to complete the requirement of a full farm. Go to the southeast to the Foothill island to find the Fertile Soil with the pickaxe in your hand. The best strategy is to run the whole area in a circle and mine every tilled soil tile. Sail early to the Foothill islands and ignore other loot temporarily if you prefer farming fast.
How to Craft Seedbed
You must have Fertile Soil before you can place a Seedbed in Windrose. Without Fertile Soil, a seedbed will not appear or will be unbuildable.
Build a Seedbed
- Once you have materials, press the B to open the build menu.
- Open the Farming tab and choose the Seedbed from the list.
- Place it on your plot using Fertile Soil.
- Start planting seeds in the placed Seedbed after moving back to the Farming tab.
Up to 5x Fertile Soil is required to build a Seedbed. You cannot place it in water, on ships, or on invalid terrain. Once placed, Seedbed becomes your crop planting tile. Crops grow automatically over time, so no watering or fertilizing is needed.
How To Get Seeds
The primary way to get seeds is to explore the islands, find wild plants like flax, corn-type plants, and herbs, and harvest them using the proper tool. Get your hands on Flax Seeds by harvesting wild Flax and Tomato Seeds by harvesting wild tomatoes. You can’t purchase the seeds early on, requiring you to collect them while exploring different biomes.
Obtain the Seeds
Every new island gives different plant types, so explore more areas as much as you can. Windrose also has a seed return system, giving you the seeds back when harvesting your planted crops. This creates a farming loop where seeds don’t fully run out. Some special, rare seeds come from quests, events, and specific loot boxes. Don’t wait for the Seedbed to be placed to farm the seeds later, but keep hunting for the seeds at the same time.
All Plantable Crops
Seedbed plants are the main crops you grow using Seedbeds & Fertile Soil. These are major farming crops used for cooking, crafting, and trading in Windrose. Ground Plants like shrubs, Ficus, and Palm are not grown in Seedbeds. They are placed directly on the terrain and serve as a decoration. Below are the Seedbed plants that you can grow using Fertile Soil, Seedbed, and Seeds.
Harvest Plants
- Peppers
- Batata
- Bean
- Leek
- Tomato
- Corn
- Flax
- Cocoplum
Press the B button and return to the Farming tab after getting the seeds. Choose the seeds you wish to plant and press the LMB on your Seedbed to place them. Cooking food buffs, crafting items like potions or alchemy materials, makes farming an essential activity.
Farming Contractor in Windrose
A Farming Contractor is basically an assigned worker NPC who manages farming tasks for you. They take over farming duties like planting, tending, and harvesting crops. Purchase the contractor from the Recruitment Vendor for 10x gold coins and place them in your base. This advanced option becomes available after reaching Tortuga.
Make sure to interact with the farming bench after placing the contractor. You may find out that this NPC requires you to bring items like silver coins or specific seeds. Interact with the farming bench again to obtain the seeds back within 8 hours.
A Farming Contractor keeps your crops running while you’re out exploring islands. This allows you to focus on combat, sailing, and exploration instead of farming chores. 10x Gold Coins are required to purchase Farming Contractor. This NPC works passively while you are offline, making the production run all the time.
