Farming Guide: Crops, Growth Times, Fertilizer and Zombie Gardeners

Farming in Graveyard Keeper 2 has no watering can, no seasons and no rain dance. It is pure bookkeeping: your own Farming mastery matters while you dig the bed and for the four ticks of sowing, and after that the bed does the work on its own numbers. Get those numbers up and the garden runs itself, eventually staffed by employees who never ask for lunch because they are dead.

How a crop grows

Everything happens on a Garden Bed in the Garden or a Vine Trellis in the Vineyard. Beds are free once you research Gardening (5 green points): dig one with a shovel, 4 swings at 2 energy each, with Farming mastery 2.

1. Sowing takes 4 seeds and 4 planting ticks (1 energy each), judged against your Farming mastery. At or above the seed’s requirement every tick succeeds. Below it, each tick succeeds with a chance of your Farming divided by the requirement, and a failed planting tick stays failed for the whole crop.
2. A crop is 12 cells. Planting fills the first 4; growth ticks fill the other 8. A tick lasts 2:00 on a starter bed.
3. From now on only the bed’s Farming counts. If the bed’s Farming is at least the requirement, each tick fills one cell per full multiple of the requirement, up to 3 cells. Below the requirement, each tick fills 1 cell that succeeds with the same Farming-to-requirement chance.
4. Harvest: every odd successful cell pays a seed, every even one a crop, and each harvest also drops 2 Leaf. Failed cells pay nothing.
5. Grades climb. Cabbage, Onion, Pumpkin and Grapes planted from bronze or silver seed pay one grade higher from the 11th successful cell. Gold seed stays gold.

Your Farming mastery at sowing time

Because the planting ticks check you, not the bed, load up before you sow graded seed. Tools count while they sit in your tool belt, and a shovel and a fishing rod add together.

The Rusty Shovel alone leaves you one point short of digging a bed; a rod or the first Farming mastery node closes the gap. Where each rod comes from and what it costs is in the fishing guide.

Every crop at a glance

Seven crops grow on Garden Beds and two on Vine Trellises. Requirements and prices for graded crops read bronze / silver / gold.

Graded garden crops do not make better dishes, they make more of them: a gold Onion turns a 2-portion batch of Onion rings into 7. Grapes are the exception, since their grade carries into the Grape Juice and Wine you make from them. The first harvest of Carrot, Beet, Cabbage, Onion and Pumpkin also reveals that crop’s dish technology in the Cooking tree for free; the dishes themselves are in the cooking guide.

Where to buy seeds

• Herm at Herm’s Store opens with Wheat seed as his only seed once Supply and Demand is done. Planted and Delivered adds Carrot, Beet, Flax and Hop seeds plus bronze Cabbage and Onion seed; The Frill of the Chase adds orchard seedlings and bronze Grape Seeds. He sells seeds in packs of 4 and stops when fewer than 4 are left.
• The Vegetable Stand in Town sells Wheat, Carrot, Beet and bronze Cabbage seed from level 1, silver and gold Cabbage, bronze and silver Onion and bronze Pumpkin seed from level 2, and the gold Onion and silver or gold Pumpkin seed at level 3. From level 1 it also stocks the Farmer’s bag, a 16-slot bag for 10 silver that no trader buys back.
• The Trademaster stocks silver Cabbage seed, Onion seed and Pumpkin Seeds, plus bronze and silver Grape Seeds, Flax Seed and Hop Seeds.
• The Brewery sells Hop Seeds from level 1 and Grape Seeds by grade: bronze from level 1, silver from 2, gold at 3. The Tailor sells Flax Seed.

Growth times by garden tier

The table assumes the bed’s Farming comes from the garden tier alone, with no fertilizer and no prayer. A crop needs 8 growth ticks; a bed at twice the requirement fills 2 cells per tick (4 ticks), at three times or more 3 cells (3 ticks). A percentage means the bed is below the requirement: the crop ripens on schedule, but each growth cell only succeeds at that rate.

Vine Trellises start at Farming 6 and reach 11 with the Vineyard Upgrade. On a starter trellis Hops succeed on 86% of cells and Grapes on 51 / 42 / 37%; on an upgraded one every Hops growth cell succeeds and Grapes reach 92 / 79 / 69%. Trellises use the same growth tick as your Garden Beds, so the Garden Upgrades speed them up too.

Peat and the Compost Pile

Peat is the first fertilizer, a building material for several garden projects and an ingredient in every crafted fertilizer. You will rarely have enough.

• The Compost Pile comes with Fertilizers I (10 green) and costs 2 Boards and 12 Sticks. It turns 8 Leaves into 2 Peat in 3 ticks and finishes on its own.
• The Compost Pile Upgrade (Compost Pile II) appears once the pile is built and Fertilizers III is researched: 12 Short Logs, 8 Bronze Nails and 2 Bronze Detail. It turns 16 Leaves into 5 Peat, a quarter more per Leaf.
• Leaves come from harvests: 2 per Garden Bed or Vine Trellis harvest, so 4 harvests feed one small batch.
• The Village toilets are the other mine. The three toilets in the Village give 2 Peat each and refill after 30 minutes. Nobody else is queuing for this resource.
• The Compost Chemist talent doubles Peat: 4 per small batch, 10 per large one.

Do the sums before you plan the vineyard: Garden Upgrade I alone is 40 Leaves at a basic pile, and twelve trellises eat 36 Peat. The developers have announced that zombie farmers will later collect Peat and restart compost heaps; in 1.008 that is still your job.

Fertilizer: every type and when to use it

The rules first, because they are where most Peat gets wasted:

• Only an empty bed can be fertilized, and the fertilizer then stays until you replace it, harvest after harvest.
• Slots: Fertilizers I gives each bed 1 slot, Fertilizers II a second one. Fertilizers III does not add a third.
• Putting the same fertilizer on a bed twice wastes the second one.
• Everything below works on Garden Beds and Vine Trellises alike.

Every crafted fertilizer is made at the Formulation Bench, unlocked by Church Lighting I and built from 4 Wooden Plank, 4 Bronze Detail and 1 Polished Bronze. Compost Chemist makes 2 per batch instead of 1, and a zombie with the Fertilizer Expert perk works the bench with +3 mastery. Plan this with the crafting calculator.

Growth elixirs

The elixirs are brewed at Laboratory I from rune totals, one flask per brew, and each ingredient must be studied once at the Study Table first. The Alchemist sells all three if you would rather pay. Every rune value and mix is in the alchemy guide.

Coal only comes from the Zombie Miner, so most gardens run on Beeswax from Beehives. Coal + Leaf is the neat exception once the mine is open: your own harvest waste becomes half of a Rich growth elixir.

Which fertilizer, when

• Early game: Peat in every bed. One Peat is a +1 that lasts until you replace it, and it costs two harvests of Leaves (4 Leaves).
• Graded crops: Farming Fertilizer closes the gap to the requirement. A Garden Upgrade II bed (8) with Farming Fertilizer III (+5) and Peat (+1) reaches 14: gold Onion and silver Pumpkin then succeed on every growth cell. An upgraded trellis (11) plus Farming Fertilizer III reaches 16, exactly gold Grapes. Whether two Farming Fertilizers of different tiers stack on one bed is not confirmed.
• Crop Boosting Fertilizer I is the cheap one: Dream Dust can be brewed from a single Peat, so a batch costs 3 Peat and a flask. The two extra cells mean one more crop and one more seed on a clean bed, and with bronze or silver seed they land in the “one grade higher” zone after cell 11.
• Headstart Fertilizer banks one or two free, guaranteed cells at the start. On a bed that fills one cell per tick, that saves one or two ticks and those cells cannot fail, so it pays most on beds still below a crop’s requirement. On a bed that already fills 2 or 3 cells per tick, Headstart I usually saves no tick at all and Headstart II saves one.

Garden upgrades

The room-for-beds and trellis capacity numbers above come from the game files and have not been counted in play yet.

Garden Upgrade I is the biggest single jump for the garden. It doubles bed Farming, cuts Wheat from 16 minutes to 7, doubles your room and makes Carrot grow at full rate. The extension has a scarecrow in the middle; that tile is a good spot for a chest. Garden Improvement II stays hidden until Garden Upgrade I is built, and it also needs Fertilizers III and Zombie Gardening.

The Vineyard sits across the Vineyard Bridge, which you repair with 4 Wooden Plank, 1 Polished Bronze and 4 Piece of stone at Building 2. The Vineyard Upgrade adds Farming and room; trellis speed still follows your Garden Upgrades.

Orchard and beehives

The Orchard holds Apple Trees (4 to 8 Apples every 20 minutes) and Berry, Blueberry and Rhododendron bushes (2 to 4 every 20 minutes). They grow at a fixed speed that no upgrade, fertilizer or prayer changes. Seedlings have a base price of 100 bronze for an Apple Tree or a Berry Bush, 150 for Rhododendron and 250 for Blueberry.

Beekeeping (50 green, after Garden Improvement I; the full chain is in the beekeeping guide) unlocks the Beehive: 2 Wooden Plank, 1 Bronze Detail and 6 Bronze Nails for 3 to 6 Honey and 1 to 2 Beeswax each time you empty it, by hand at Farming 3. Hives, Berry bushes and Rhododendron bushes (distilled into Fragrance) cover all three growth elixirs without a single lump of Coal: Beeswax alone, Beeswax + Berry, Beeswax + Fragrance.

Zombie gardening: Gardener Stands, Tablets and the Lifting Crane

Zombie Gardening (60 green, 20 blue, after Garden Improvement I) unlocks the Gardener Stand, the Lifting Crane and free crop Tablets for Wheat, Carrot, Beet, Cabbage, Onion, Pumpkin and Flax. Zombie Vineyard (150 green, 50 blue, after Brewing) does the same for the Vineyard: a vineyard Gardener Stand, a Vineyard Porter Station and the Hops and Grapes Tablets. Getting the zombie in the first place is covered in the zombies guide.

Setting up a gardener

1. Build a Gardener Stand: 4 Wooden Plank, 2 Bronze Detail and 6 Bronze Nails. The Garden has 2 stand spots, the Vineyard 2 more.
2. Put a shovel in the zombie’s hand. Without one it stops working and walks back to its stand.
3. Fertilize the beds first. Once a gardener has taken a bed’s order, you can no longer plant or fertilize that bed yourself.
4. Place a Tablet. A garden Tablet marks a row of 5 Garden Beds. You get 2 Tablet spots, 4 after Garden Upgrade I and 6 after Garden Upgrade II, which covers exactly 10, 20 and 30 beds. A vineyard Tablet marks 3 Vine Trellises, with 4 spots and 6 after the Vineyard Upgrade.
5. Stock seeds in an open chest in the Garden, not in the Garden Storage sacks. The zombie takes 4 per planting, and players see gardeners grab the lowest-quality seed on hand, so keep only the grade you want.
6. Leave room in those chests. The harvest goes back into them; when they are full the gardener shows a “no room” sign and waits.

A bed that still holds a different crop is not replanted: harvest it yourself first. With two gardeners on one area, both take planting orders and the one with more Farming mastery handles the harvests. Update 1.008 fixed gardeners that failed to produce anything.

Which zombie to put on the stand

A zombie has no Farming of its own: its Farming is its tool (+1 rusty, +2 bronze, +4 iron, +6 steel shovel) plus the Farming nodes and perks it has bought, and planting is judged against the seed’s requirement just as yours is.

• An Iron Shovel (4) lets any zombie, even a 0-skull one, plant Wheat and Carrot flawlessly. A Steel Shovel (6) covers Flax and Beet.
• Cabbage and up need nodes, and every node uses one of the zombie’s red-skull slots. Its Farming tree holds Dirt Digger (+2 Farming when planting, 100 green) and Crop Planter (+4, 500 green); game versions before 1.007 called them Farmer I and Farmer II. Its seven mastery nodes add +9 Farming for 1,650 green in all (the first costs 50), and the whole tree, perks included, comes to 4,650 green.

So: weak bodies with a good shovel on Wheat, Carrot and Flax rows (Flax needs the Steel Shovel), your better-skulled zombies on graded crops. Skulls and nodes are explained in the zombies guide.

Lifting Crane, Garden Storage and the Factory

The Lifting Crane (8 Wooden beam, 3 Bronze Gear, 4 Iron Detail) needs no zombie. It lifts the crops you tick in its window (nothing is ticked by default) from the garden chests into Garden Storage, and it unlocks Garden Storage II. The Factory can belt straight out of Garden Storage, which is where the garden starts paying off:

• Wheat to Zombie Power: the Bioreactor turns 5 Wheat into 1, with no zombie.
• Flax to Fabric: an Assembly bench with the Spinning wheel extension turns 16 Flax into 1 Fabric or 1 Supply: Fabric (2 with a Tailor zombie). A Flax gardener feeding that bench is a classic first Factory module.
• Vegetables to town orders: Vegetable Supplies (120 green, 25 blue, after Zombie Gardening) unlocks Kitchen I. One Supply: Vegetables crate takes 1 Crate plus 16 Carrot, 12 Beet, 10 / 8 / 6 Cabbage, 8 / 6 / 4 Onion or 3 / 2 / 1 Pumpkin by grade. Gold crops fill crates with far fewer vegetables.

In the Vineyard, the Vineyard Porter Station carries Honey, Hops and Grapes down to the Vineyard Basement, where the drinks are made. Belts, power and porters are in factory automation.

Talents for farmers

Since the bed does the growing, Farming mastery nodes only help you dig and sow in the garden (the same mastery also counts in the kitchen and at the fishing spot). The talents that pay on every harvest are better value, though Farmer II and Seed Master hang below a Farming mastery node, so some mastery comes along on the way. Each talent costs 1 point in the Farming tree; how to earn points is in talents and inspirations.

What farming is worth

• Coins: very little. Wheat sells for 2 bronze and Carrot for 3 at a trader’s usual stock. Herm and the level 1 Vegetable Stand only take bronze-grade crops, so silver and gold garden crops have no buyer until the Vegetable Stand is upgraded (level 2 for silver and gold Cabbage and silver Onion, level 3 for gold Onion and silver or gold Pumpkin). Grapes are the exception at 50 to 100 bronze base, and Wine is where the vineyard’s money is: see wine and alcohol.
• Green points: plenty. Every harvest pays 2 (Wheat) to 12 (Pumpkin, Grapes) green points, and studying each crop once at the Study Table pays more: a Pumpkin gives 50 green and 30 blue for 3 Science and 3 Faith.
• Reputation and unlocks. Planted and Delivered: bring Herm 5 Wheat as free samples for +5 Village reputation, his second stock level, the Vegetable dishes technology and the Farmer’s Clothes outfit. The journal suggests buying 16 to 20 seeds, but only the 5 Wheat are checked.
• Town orders. Supply crates of vegetables, flour and fabric fill Likes; the town orders guide explains the payouts.
• Master Farmer: harvest 100 crops. Each harvested bed appears to count once however much it yields, so cheap, fast Wheat is the quickest way there.

A farming route that works

1. Gardening (5 green). Dig beds, buy Wheat seed from Herm, sow at Farming 2 and hand in 5 Wheat for Planted and Delivered.
2. Fertilizers I (10 green). Build the Compost Pile, Peat every bed, and grow one bed each of Carrot and Beet for their free dish technologies (they sow cleanly at Farming 4 and 6; below that, expect a thin first crop). Flax if you need thread.
3. Garden Improvement I (30 green). Garden Upgrade I first, the well upgrade second.
4. Zombie Gardening (60 green, 20 blue). Two stands, Tablets on Wheat, Carrot or Flax rows. From scratch this path costs 105 green and 20 blue.
5. Fertilizers II and III, then Garden Improvement II. Brew growth elixirs, craft 9 Farming Fertilizer II and build Garden Upgrade II. The whole path to Garden Improvement II is 295 green and 70 blue.
6. Vineyard (55 green), then Brewing, Zombie Vineyard, Fertilizers IV and Vineyard Improvement. Fertilizers IV sits behind Zombie Vineyard, so Farming Fertilizer III and the Harvest Prayer arrive late. Grapes for Wine are the payoff.

For where farming fits among all the other trees, see tech priorities.

Common mistakes

• Sowing graded seed below its requirement. Failed planting ticks are permanent. Stack shovel, rod and a Muffin before you plant Cabbage, Onion, Pumpkin or Grapes.
• Fertilizing a planted bed. Fertilizer only goes on an empty bed. Do it between harvests, and before a gardener claims the row.
• Doubling up. The same fertilizer twice on one bed wastes the second.
• Buying Farming mastery to grow faster. After sowing, only the bed’s Farming counts. Spend on Garden Upgrades, fertilizer, Farmer and Seed Master.
• Mixed seed grades in the garden chest. Gardeners seem to grab the lowest grade available, so keep only the grade you want.
• A gardener with no shovel, or a full chest. Without a shovel it walks back to its stand; with full chests it waits under a “no room” sign. Either way the row stops.
• An empty Lifting Crane window. Nothing is ticked by default, so nothing moves until you tick each crop.
• Growing gold garden crops to sell early. Nobody buys them before the Vegetable Stand is upgraded. Cook them, crate them or keep them as seed.
• Throwing Leaves away. Harvest Leaves and the three Village toilets are where Peat comes from, and the toilets give only 2 each per half hour.