If you’ve spent hours running around Enshrouded’s overworld scrounging for berries and mushrooms just to keep your health bar from dropping during boss fights, you’ve probably wondered if there’s a more reliable way to get food. The good news is you don’t have to rely on foraging forever, and learning how to place farm soil enshrouded is the first step to building a fully self-sufficient base. I messed up my first three attempts at setting up a farm because I skipped a few key prerequisites, so I put together this guide to help you avoid the same mistakes. Before you know it, you’ll be growing enough wheat, carrots, and herbs to feed yourself, craft high-level potions, and even trade with NPCs you rescue along the way.
Pre-Requisites to Master How to Place Farm Soil Enshrouded
You can’t just dig up dirt and turn it into farm soil as soon as you spawn into the world, there are a few small boxes you need to tick first. The most important requirement is unlocking the Farmer NPC, who you’ll find trapped in a small camp in the northern part of the Revelwood biome. Complete her rescue quest, bring her back to your base, and she’ll automatically unlock the farm soil recipe for your crafting menu.
Next, you’ll need to gather the materials to craft farm soil. As of the latest game patch, each farm soil tile requires 3 units of Dirt, 1 unit of Bonemeal, and 1 unit of Rot. Dirt is the easiest to source, just dig any bare ground with a pickaxe to get as much as you need. Bonemeal is made by processing animal bones from hunted deer, boars, or wolves at a grinder. Rot can be looted from rotting food piles in abandoned camps, or made by tossing spoiled food and plant trimmings into a composter at your base.
You’ll also need a clear, flat area that sits fully outside the Shroud. You cannot place farm soil in areas covered by the Shroud, even if you plan to clear the Shroud later, because the corrupting effect kills any seeds planted before you can remove the fog. You don’t need a dedicated workbench to craft farm soil once you unlock the recipe, you can make it directly from your inventory as long as you have the required materials on hand.
Step-by-Step Process to Place Farm Soil Correctly
Once you have your materials and a clear space picked out, placing farm soil only takes a few minutes if you follow these steps. I recommend crafting all the farm soil you need first, rather than making one tile at a time, to avoid running back and forth to gather materials mid-build. For a small starter farm, 10 to 15 tiles are more than enough to feed you and your first few NPCs.
First, prepare your build site. Remove all grass, rocks, twigs, and loose debris from the area, and use a pickaxe to flatten any sloped ground. Uneven ground will prevent you from placing farm soil tiles next to each other, so take an extra minute to smooth out bumps before you start placing tiles. If you want to build an elevated farm to keep crops safe from wandering monsters, you can place farm soil on top of wooden or stone platforms as long as the platform surface is flat.
Next, open your build menu and navigate to the Farming tab to select farm soil. Hover over your prepared ground, and you’ll see a green outline if the placement is valid, or a red outline if something is wrong. If you see a red outline, check that you’re not too close to another existing structure, that the tile is fully outside the Shroud, and that the ground is completely flat. Place each tile one by one, leaving at least one block of space between rows if you want to walk between them to harvest crops easily. I made the mistake of placing tiles right next to each other my first time, and I had to break half the farm to reach crops in the middle.
Common Mistakes to Avoid With Farm Soil Placement
Even if you follow the basic steps perfectly, it’s easy to run into small issues that stop your farm from working as expected. I’ve dealt with all of these mistakes at least once during my playthroughs, so I can tell you exactly what to watch out for to save yourself time and resources.
- Placing farm soil too close to Shroud borders: Even if the tile itself is not covered by the Shroud, if it’s within 2 blocks of the Shroud edge, your crops will grow 50% slower, or die entirely if the Shroud spreads during a storm. Always leave at least 3 blocks of clear, non-Shroud space between your farm and the nearest Shroud border.
- Forgetting to place a water source nearby: Crops don’t need manual watering, but they do need to be within 3 blocks of a water trough or natural water source to grow. If you skip this step, your seeds will never sprout, no matter how long you wait.
- Placing farm soil directly under heavy roof cover: Crops need access to natural sunlight to grow, so a solid wooden or stone roof over your farm will stop growth entirely. You can use glass roof tiles if you want to protect your farm from rain or monsters, as glass lets enough light pass through to support crop growth.
Another common mistake new players make is placing dozens of farm soil tiles before they have enough seeds to plant. Basic vegetable seeds can be found by foraging wild crops around the map, but higher-value seeds like cotton or golden wheat have to be purchased from the Farmer NPC once you level up her friendship rank. Start small with 5 to 10 tiles, then expand your farm as you collect more seeds. If you're still confused about how to place farm soil enshrouded after your first few tries, you can test placement in a small area near your base first before committing to a big farm layout.
Tips to Optimize Your Farm Soil Layout for Maximum Yield
Once you get the hang of placing farm soil, you can tweak your layout to get more crops per tile and cut down on maintenance time. I’ve tested dozens of farm layouts across multiple playthroughs, and these small changes make a huge difference in how much food you can produce with minimal effort.
Fertilized farm soil cuts crop growth time by 30%, so if you have extra Rot and Bonemeal on hand, it’s always worth making fertilized soil for your highest-value crops, like healing herbs or cotton used to craft high-level armor. You can unlock the fertilized soil recipe from the Farmer once you complete her first side quest, which only requires you to bring her a handful of wild herbs.
My go-to farm layout uses 3x3 blocks of farm soil, with a single water trough placed in the middle of each block. This setup ensures every single tile is within 3 blocks of water, so you don’t waste space on extra water troughs. I also place scarecrows around the edge of the farm, which stop birds from eating up to half your crops before you can harvest them. Scarecrows only cost a few sticks and pieces of cloth to make, so they’re a very low-investment upgrade that pays off almost immediately.
If you play on a multiplayer server, place small fence posts around the edge of your farm to mark it as your space, so other players don’t accidentally build over your tiles. It’s also a good idea to put a small storage chest right next to your farm to store extra seeds, fertilizer, and harvested crops, so you don’t have to run back to your main storage building every time you tend to your plants.
At the end of the day, setting up a farm doesn’t have to be a complicated process, and knowing how to place farm soil enshrouded is one of the most useful skills you can pick up early in your playthrough. You don’t need endgame materials or high-level upgrades to get started, even a small 5-tile farm will save you hours of foraging time that you can spend exploring new biomes or fighting bosses. Don’t get discouraged if your first farm doesn’t work out, I broke at least 15 farm soil tiles my first time trying to get the layout right. Once you have a steady supply of homegrown food and herbs, you’ll wonder how you ever survived without a farm.