If you’re into gardening in The Sims, you’re going to love the new oversized crops that come with The Sims 4 Cottage Living. Plop down a garden patch or two and you’ll be ready to get started. Use the new harvestables to create canned goods or visit the Finchwick Fair to join the Oversized Crops Competition.
How to Start your Oversized Crop Garden
Unlike regular crops, oversized crops can’t be planted in the regular ground or planter. To get started you’ll need to place a garden patch in Build Mode. Start with 5 to 15 garden patches if you can. Less is fine, but keep in mind each crop will take about a full week to grow. Oversized crops will grow year-round, so no need to place them inside a greenhouse even with The Sims 4 Seasons installed.
Now you have the garden patches placed, it’s time to order some seeds. Click on either a computer or one of the garden patches to order them. You can pick between five kinds of crops: aubergine, lettuce, mushroom, pumpkin or watermelon. The seeds will appear in your Sims’ inventory so go ahead and plant them.
Taking Really Good care of your Crops
As with any harvestable crop, your oversized crops will need proper care to grow. Sickly plants will eventually die if you do not try to salvage their damage, which would be a waste of the plant, but also your money as you’ll need to start over. With some time and love, Sims of all gardening skill levels can grow the perfect oversized crop!
Beware: The Uproot Plant interaction will trash the plant, so don’t use this unless you are sure you want to get rid of it.
Water the Crops
The bare minimum which you can do for your plants is water them, but this won’t be enough to keep them growing healthily. Just use the water interaction to keep the roots moist. Your kids can also help out in the garden by watering the plants. If you have The Sims 4 Seasons installed you can place sprinkles directly next to your garden patches to keep them moisturized. Make sure the sprinkles are enabled, only then will they water your plants automatically.
Remove the Weeds
When weeds start growing around your crops you should get rid of them immediately. Letting weeds stay put will eventually turn your plants sickly. Just click on the plant to weed them yourself, or use another – much cuter – way to do this. Use the hassle free fertilizer on your crop to keep the weeds away for longer.
Tip: When a crop is still in its second growth stage (sprout), you can use the Encourage Crop Growth interaction to keep the weeds to a minimum.
Get Rid of Pests
Sometimes your plants will attract bugs. If left untreated the plant will become sickly, which we want to avoid at all cost. Spray the bugs to get rid of them. You can also use the hassle free fertilizer to keep bugs away for longer.
You might get another unsolicited visitor from time to time if you have the Wild Foxes lot challenge activated. Your Sim can chase the fox away personally or befriend them to keep the fox from stealing your crops. If you can’t be bothered dealing with wild foxes you can disable the lot challenge as a whole.
How to Grow Oversized Crops
Oversized crops don’t always grow to their full potential. There’s a couple of ways you can improve your chances to get an actual oversized crop instead of a small or medium one. The status of a sprout – at the exact moment it grows into a bigger plant – determines what it will grow into when growing into its crop-form. Hover your cursor over the plant to see its status.
| Size crop | Health status | Fertilizer active |
|---|---|---|
| Oversized | Healthy | Yes |
| Medium | Healthy | No |
| Small | Fine or lower | Yes and no |
Fertilize your Crops
The easiest way to get fertilizers for your plants is to click a garden patch to buy either the vitality fertilizer or hassle free fertilizer. The latter can also be bought at the Garden Shop in Finchwick Square. This is where you can also get the grow-fast fertilizer. Another way to get the vitality fertilizer is to clean a chicken coop, this interaction has a chance of giving you loot. Clean an animal shed for a chance to get the super vitality fertilizer. Each fertilizer can also be rewarded to your Sim for doing errands for your neighbors. However, the hyper growth fertilizer seems to be the only fertilizer purely obtained by doing errands.
- Grow-Fast Fertilizer
For when crops need growing fast. A daily dose of this fertilizer will accelerate any crop through its life cycle and be ready for harvest in time for that competition! - Hyper Growth Fertilizer
The finest formula of crop growth fertilizers. A daily dose of this stuff will put rocket boosters on your plant’s size chance, or at the very least really kick the crop’s weight into overdrive! - Hassle Free Fertilizer
This fertilizer was built for the busy crop gardener who just needs more time. This formula is scientifically guaranteed to stop weed growth and keep bugs away! Simply sprinkle this fertilizer over your crops once every few days and remember to water your plants. - Vitality Fertilizer
Is your crop plant looking sickly or does its fruit need a little help reaching higher quality? Look no further! Sprinkle this fertilizer over your field once a day for a nice boost to the health of your plant and the quality of its yield. - Super Vitality Fertilizer
Are you looking to supercharge the health of your crop? Sprinkle a daily dose of this fertilizer to make sure your plant is as healthy as possible and yields the highest quality crops.
Tip: It can become quite expensive to constantly fertilize all your crops. Fertilizing the crops when they need a boost might be a better solution if you want to make money off your harvest.
Socialize with your Crops
According to Agnes Crumplebottom, plants are very social beings. They need lots of care – and apparently a good conversation or two – to grow to their full potential. Socialize with your plant by using the interactions called Urge to Romain Calm, Give Encourage-mint, Share News about Flowery Matters or Talk about Stalk Market. To be honest with you I am not completely sure if this actually helps your plant to grow better, but it’s fun to think it does.
Ask your Animal Friends to Help in the Garden
To make your life a little bit easier you can ask befriended animals to help you upkeep your garden. Make sure you’ve actually asked them to help, just befriending them won’t be enough. Each animal species will have its own benefits, so it’s worth it to spend some time making friends with each of them.
Wild Rabbits on Weeding Duty
Sometimes wild rabbits will appear in your garden so you’ll have the opportunity to interact with them then. If you don’t want to wait, go into the Bramblewood and look for a tree stump with a rabbit hole in it. You can try to lure out any bunny that’s in there or look around if you can find one hopping around.
Once you befriend a bunny you’ll unlock their home in Build Mode. Place one onto your lot to have your bunny buddy appear more often. Bunnies will eat away the weeds around your crops and even have a chance to fertilize them for you.
Get a Flock of Birds to Sing & Dine
It’s time to visit the Bramblewood again! Search for a dead tree with hollows in it. You will see wild little birds flying nearby or sitting on it. Befriend the flock and ask them to help you in the garden. You will have unlocked their home in Build Mode, so make sure to place one onto your lot. This will ensure the birds can access the garden.
Wild birds will sing occasionally to your crops to encourage their growth. While the singing gives us real Disney-vibes it’s not all birds will do. They will eat away any pesky bugs infecting your plants. It’s almost like a DIY dinner show!
Get Golden Chickens to help around
If you have a chicken coop you can give one of your chickens a golden treat to turn them into a golden chicken. Befriend it to ask it for help in your garden. Golden chickens have special powers where they bless your crops. They will walk up to your crops – so make sure they can reach it – and bless each patch once.
Guard llama to the Rescue!
Wild foxes can sometimes come into your garden to cause mischief. This will only happen with the Wild Foxes lot challenge activated, which is automatically assigned to each lot in Henford-on-Bagley. Foxes will try to steal your fruits, but if you have a llama they can stop this from happening by spitting on the fox.
Why not ask Patchy too?
Okay, he might not be a new feature to the game – or an animal for that matter – but we did want to mention Patchy the Scarecrow for those who have The Sims 4 Seasons installed. Once you befriend him he periodically comes to life to help out in the garden. He’s basically a much cooler version of the gardening service.
Time to Harvest!
Oversized crops take their time to grow, but it might be well worth the effort. Depending on certain variables such as (growth boosting) fertilizers, it will take the crops about a week to develop into a fully matured plant. Now all that is left to do is harvest the crop, which will then show up in your Sims’ inventory.
Hover over the crops to see the final results. You will be able to see the weight, worth and quality of your harvest. There are five levels of quality: normal, nice, excellent, magnificent and perfect, where normal is the least good and perfect the best. The weight and worth can differ a lot even if the crops come from one plant.
Tip: The crops in your inventory will spoil after a couple of days. You can prolong their freshness by putting them in the fridge.
What can I do with Oversized Crops?
So now that you have your harvestables ready and looking pretty in your inventory – or fridge – what else can you do with them? There’s actually quite a few things! Let me go through them one by one:
Compete with your Crops at the Finchwick Fair
Once every five weeks the Finchwick Fair will be all about oversized crops. Why not take your best crop and participate in the competition? You might win some nice prizes if the judge thinks your crop is the plumpiest of all. Don’t forget to take your best crop out of the fridge and into your Sims’ inventory!
Use the Crops in your Cooking
Many harvestables can be used in the kitchen, much like your oversized crops! Use your produce as fresh ingredients to your recipes. This is especially convenient if you have the Simple Living lot challenge active. Another thing tied in with the cooking skill is the new ability to preserve your crops with canning.
We recommend you only use the small and medium crops in your recipes. Oversized crops – especially the perfect ones – can earn you quite a lot of cash which would be a waste to cook down into a jam. Which brings me to the following…
Make Great Money with your Oversized Crops
The easiest ways to sell your oversized crops will be just to sell them in your inventory. But why do that if there’s so much more money to earn from it?! You can go to Finchwick Square and sell the crops at one of the market stalls. Doing this during the Finchwick Fair will increase the money you’ll earn by approximately 10%.
Some other possibilities depend on what packs you have installed, but here are some examples:
- Set for sale in your own retail store (Get to Work)
- Place your own market table to sell from there (Get to Work, City Living, Eco Lifestyle, Jungle Adventure)
If you plan on selling the crops for profit it’s wise to work through your financial plan first. What fertilizers will you use and how many? You’d want to focus on getting your sprout to grow into an oversized crop, which will be one bigger plant. Keep their health status on healthy and with a fertilizer activated at all times during their sprout phase. After they’ve grown into one bigger plant you can neglect the fertilizers a lot more as it will not affect the end result as much anymore. Just keep them healthy and they’ll be worth a lot of money.
What are my Crops Worth?
The prices of your crops can differ a lot, even when it’s the same crop. It all depends on the size, quality and the weight of your harvest. There are five oversized crops to cultivate: aubergines, crops of lettuce, mushrooms, pumpkins and watermelons. Watermelons usually end up being worth the least of them all. Aubergines are cheaper a piece, but they make up for it by growing in pairs.
Perfect oversized crops have a certain price range. However, it can happen that you’ll get a crop which is worth even more than that. This happens thanks to variables such as a golden chicken’s blessing, the amount of fertilizers used and which kind and so on. You might want to consider taking these giants to the Finchwick Fair for prizes!
Aubergine
Typically purple in color and meaty in texture, aubergine can be used as a suitable meat substitute when cooking.
| Quality of the crop | Simoleons | |
|---|---|---|
| Small Aubergines | Normal | § 22+ |
| Nice | § 26+ | |
| Excellent | § 30+ | |
| Magnificent | § 33+ | |
| Perfect | § 37+ | |
| Medium Aubergines | Normal | § 78+ |
| Nice | § 91+ | |
| Excellent | § 104+ | |
| Magnificent | § 117+ | |
| Perfect | § 130+ | |
| Oversized Aubergines | Normal | § 191+ |
| Nice | § 223+ | |
| Excellent | § 225+ | |
| Magnificent | § 287+ | |
| Perfect | § 319 – § 365 |
Lettuce
Lettuce, the once great substance for salad, will soon be forgotten due to the growing popularity of its similar, but different, leafy cousin.
| Quality of the crop | Simoleons | |
|---|---|---|
| Small Lettuce | Normal | § 22+ |
| Nice | § 26+ | |
| Excellent | § 30+ | |
| Magnificent | § 33+ | |
| Perfect | § 37+ | |
| Medium Lettuce | Normal | § 83+ |
| Nice | § 97+ | |
| Excellent | § 110+ | |
| Magnificent | § 124+ | |
| Perfect | § 138+ | |
| Oversized Lettuce | Normal | § 300+ |
| Nice | § 350+ | |
| Excellent | § 400+ | |
| Magnificent | § 450+ | |
| Perfect | § 500 – § 580 |
Mushrooms
Mushrooms are a fleshy, umbrella-shaped fungus that can sometimes be poisonous. These aren’t though. Honest.
| Quality of the crop | Simoleons | |
|---|---|---|
| Small Mushrooms | Normal | § 22+ |
| Nice | § 26+ | |
| Excellent | § 30+ | |
| Magnificent | § 34+ | |
| Perfect | § 37+ | |
| Medium Mushrooms | Normal | § 87+ |
| Nice | § 102+ | |
| Excellent | § 116+ | |
| Magnificent | § 131+ | |
| Perfect | § 145+ | |
| Oversized Mushrooms | Normal | § 390+ |
| Nice | § 455+ | |
| Excellent | § 520+ | |
| Magnificent | § 585+ | |
| Perfect | § 650 – § 740 |
Pumpkin
A round squash with smooth, slightly ribbed skin, and most commonly deep orange color. The icon of the squash world. The great pumpkin waits for no one.
| Quality of the crop | Simoleons | |
|---|---|---|
| Small Pumpkins | Normal | § 32+ |
| Nice | § 38+ | |
| Excellent | § 43+ | |
| Magnificent | § 49+ | |
| Perfect | § 54+ | |
| Medium Pumpkins | Normal | § 98+ |
| Nice | § 115+ | |
| Excellent | § 131+ | |
| Magnificent | § 148+ | |
| Perfect | § 164+ | |
| Oversized Pumpkins | Normal | § 230+ |
| Nice | § 269+ | |
| Excellent | § 307+ | |
| Magnificent | § 346+ | |
| Perfect | § 384 – § 440 |
Watermelon
Hailing from the cucurbits family, these sweet juicy gourds are all the rage on a hot summer day. Don’t eat the seeds though, you would not want one of these things growing inside your tum tum.
| Quality of the crop | Simoleons | |
|---|---|---|
| Small Watermelons | Normal | § 28+ |
| Nice | § 33+ | |
| Excellent | § 38+ | |
| Magnificent | § 42+ | |
| Perfect | § 47+ | |
| Medium Watermelons | Normal | § 85+ |
| Nice | § 99+ | |
| Excellent | § 114+ | |
| Magnificent | § 128+ | |
| Perfect | § 142+ | |
| Oversized Watermelons | Normal | § 199+ |
| Nice | § 232+ | |
| Excellent | § 266+ | |
| Magnificent | § 299+ | |
| Perfect | § 332 – § 380 |
