It pays to have a green thumb
The flora in The Forest provides many valuable properties. Gathering herbs and mushrooms can be tricky at times if you struggle to find where they grow naturally. Luckily, you can grow your own herbs with a bit of work. This guide will teach you how to create and grow a garden and show you how to have a consistent source of herbs, berries, and mushrooms.
How to build a garden
To start things off, you will want to have a protected (preferably a walled-in area) space to plan out how large your garden will be. You can make your garden as large as you like; however, it will cost more materials to craft. Keep in mind that it can be difficult to find a large flat space on the peninsula as it is mostly hills and cliffs, so planning ahead is crucial to avoid space issues for your base.
Once you have determined where to place your garden, all you have to do is place the blueprint down where you see fit. The recipe requires logs to create and will require more logs exponentially the larger you make the blueprint. We recommend crafting a medium-sized garden or several smaller ones to grow your herbs of choice and have them separated for convenience and quick identification (plus, it looks prettier).
Gardens can be used repeatedly, so you don’t have to worry about building more of them after your plants finish growing. Do keep in mind that once your blueberries have finished growing, you can either cut them down to grow more, or you can leave them around for decorative purposes. They are wonderful food items to keep in your inventory because they can be eaten anywhere and don’t have to be cooked like meat.
It is important to note that you can grow mushrooms, but you must place the garden in a cave. Planting in caves with a high cannibal population can be tricky, as they will destroy your garden once they discover it. You must also avoid caves that require you to drop down into as it will be near impossible to bring the required wooden logs into those caves.
Another thing to consider about growing large gardens is that your plants will wither over time, so make sure that you or a friend can maintain your crops regularly to avoid wasting your seeds.
How to grow plants in your garden
Once your garden is built and placed where you want it, it’s time to plant some seeds. You can only grow blueberries, coneflower, and aloe in an exterior garden, and if a garden is built in a cave, you can grow all available mushrooms. To find seeds, simply gather blueberries, aloe, and coneflowers, and they will be collected into your inventory automatically.
Growing blueberries
To grow blueberries, you must have blueberry seeds. These are automatically collected while gathering blueberries. Blueberries cannot be grown in a wall planter and will only fit in a garden. You can hold up to 30 blueberries and 30 blueberry seeds simultaneously. A quick way to get more seeds without constantly searching for blueberries is using the duplication glitch.
Once you are ready to grow your blueberries, interact with the garden and make sure that you have the blueberry seeds selected by swapping seed types with the ‘R’ key. After selecting blueberries, you can press the ‘C’ key, and it will plant them in your garden. It will take four days for your blueberries to grow to maturity and yield approximately nine berries. This is the growth process for blueberries:
- Day 0: The seeds will be planted on the ground and will appear as all other plants do when grown in a garden.
- Day 1: The seeds will sprout but will not yield any berries.
- Day 2: The berries will be in a small bush, and some berries are available to be picked.
- Day 3: The plant will be much larger and will yield roughly 3-4 berries if harvested.
- Day 4: The plant will be fully grown and will provide the maximum yield of 9 berries.
Do note that once you harvest the berries, you may not be able to harvest multiple times on the same bush. This can sometimes be buggy, but generally, the rule of thumb is that you can only harvest once.
Growing Coneflower
Coneflower can be grown in-wall planters and gardens. The player can hold unlimited coneflower seeds, making them very easy to duplicate with the metal tray. Coneflower is an excellent plant that allows you to make herbal medicine and energy mix, so having an ample supply of coneflower is a good way to keep you and your friends alive. Coneflower grows much faster than blueberries and should be ready to harvest within 2-3 days. You generally will yield 2-3 coneflower per seed planted, and you can plant a large amount of them alongside aloe vera.
Growing Aloe Vera
Aloe vera is much like coneflower and will generally grow around the same time as coneflower does. Aloe vera can also be planted in wall planters and gardens. Having a steady supply of aloe vera is very important as it is the only way to cure infections and food poisoning, so make sure that you always have enough aloe vera seeds.
Growing Mushrooms
You can grow any type of mushroom available in the game. Mushrooms can only be grown in gardens in caves. There is a way to grow mushrooms out of caves, but this requires a modded server. There is also a glitch that you can use where if you go into a cave and try to place the blueprint outside of the cave, you will be able to utilize that garden for mushrooms even if it is located outside. This technique only will work with caves that you have to shimmy into.
Mushrooms are unique as they don’t require seeds to grow. To grow mushrooms, you must have the mushrooms you desire to grow in your inventory. You will then simply place the mushrooms in the garden, to which they will begin to duplicate.
You will not yield any additional mushrooms if you fill the entire garden up with mushrooms, as they need room to duplicate. We recommend placing about 3-4 mushrooms at a time for the fastest results. Once you have the mushrooms placed, you can then give them some alone time to duplicate. After about a day, you should have a couple of new mushrooms pop up in the garden, to which you can collect and repeat the process.
Grow your way to success
Gardens are a great way to keep a constant supply of herbs and berries that will help keep you fed and healthy in The Forest. A steady supply of the herbs mentioned above will be vital to surviving expeditions into the caves by fighting off infection and exhaustion and keeping you fed and hydrated. For more in-depth information and guides, be sure to check out The Forest Beginner’s Guide.
