clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Valheim guide: Planting seeds and farming

Craft the cultivator to grow crops

Valheim farming planting seeds Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon
Jeffrey Parkin (he/him) has been writing video game guides for Polygon for almost seven years. He has learned to love just about every genre of game that exists.

In Valheim, the best boosts to health and stamina are foods you can make after planting seeds and farming. In this Valheim guide will walk you through finding seeds, crafting a cultivator, and planting carrots, turnips, and trees.

Why you should plant seeds and farm

Since your health and stamina are tied to the foods you eat, finding the best foods is important for staying alive in Valheim.

After you have a smelter and start making tin, you’ll unlock the cauldron (10 tin) — a pot that hangs over a fire and lets you make recipes out of multiple foods. The foods you make depend on the ingredients you’ve found, and the ingredients available depend on what biome you’re in.

The best early game foods

Even early in the game, the foods that give the best benefits require carrots and turnips, and you won’t find them just laying around. You’ll have to grow the ingredients for these from seeds:

  • Carrot soup (1 mushroom, 3 carrots) is great for your stamina.
  • Sausages (3 entrail, 1 raw meat, 4 thistle) are really good for both health and stamina, with slightly more health than stamina.
  • Turnip stew (1 raw meat, 3 turnips) gives an equal (and large) boost to both health and stamina, making it the best food you have available once you reach the swamp biome.

Finding seeds

You can only plant a few things at this point in the game’s development because there are only a few kinds of seeds Valheim.

The things you can plant are carrots, turnips, beech trees, fir trees, and pine trees.

You’ll collect carrot seeds from white flowers in black forest biomes, and turnip seeds from yellow flowers in swamp biomes. With those in hand, plant them with a cultivator (5 core wood, 5 bronze) in some cultivated soil.

You cannot plant birch trees, raspberries, or blueberries.

Craft the cultivator

At a forge, craft the cultivator (5 core wood, 5 bronze). Remember that core wood comes from pine trees in the black forest biome, and bronze is a combination of copper and tin.

The cultivator is basically a pitchfork that lets you plant seeds you’ve been finding but couldn’t use. The cultivator also lets you regrow grass on land you’ve leveled with your hoe.

Cultivate land and plant seeds

The first step to planting seeds is tilling the land — using the cultivator to cultivate, its default action in the build menu. When the soil is ready, you can plant seeds.

Valheim farming carrots and turnips.
Our troll-head scarecrow doesn’t do any good scaring off boars. The roundpole fence is much more effective.
Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon

Planting crops and protecting them

Boars and other enemies seem to hate growing plants, so you’ll need to build a fence — either roundpole fence (1 wood) or stakewall (4 wood) if you’re into overkill — around your garden plot.

Plants need a little space around them to grow, so don’t make your rows of vegetables too dense. After you plant a seed, put your cultivator away and approach the plant. You’ll see if it’s too crowded in the tooltip.

Seeds take a few in-game days (an hour to 90 minutes of real-world time) before they’re ready to harvest. Planting a seed-carrot (1 carrot) or seed-turnip (1 turnip) will grow into three more seeds. When you’re harvesting, replant one of every three vegetables to keep the cycle going.

Valheim beehives produce honey for potions
Beehives provide a local source of honey for potions.
Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon

Since you’ve got a fenced-in plot for farming, this is a good place to build your beehives (10 wood, 1 queen bee) to keep them protected. Beehives produce 4 honey every (roughly) three in-game days. Since you’ll need so much honey for your potions, it’s a good idea to make several for a steady supply.

Planting trees

Planting trees works the same way as planting carrot or turnip sees. Cultivate some land, plant your seeds, and wait a few in-game days to collect your wood.

You’ll collect some seeds from beech, fir, and pine trees when you cut them down. Then, you can grow beech seeds and fir cones for wood or pine cones for core wood.

The next level of puzzles.

Take a break from your day by playing a puzzle or two! We’ve got SpellTower, Typeshift, crosswords, and more.

news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news