If you've spent hours running around Enshrouded's biomes scrounging for berries and wild fiber, you know how annoying it is to run out of healing supplies mid-dungeon run. That's why learning how to plant seeds enshrouded is one of the most useful quality-of-life upgrades you can unlock early on. I spent my first 20 hours of play ignoring the farming system entirely, assuming it was just a late-game cosmetic feature, but once I set up my first small crop plot, I never went back to foraging for basic supplies again. This guide breaks down every step of the process, from unlocking the required tools to troubleshooting crops that won't grow, so you can set up a sustainable farm at your base in no time.
What You Need Before You Start Planting Seeds in Enshrouded
You don't need to be dozens of hours into the game to start farming. The only pre-requisite is rescuing the Farmer NPC from the small ruined farm just west of the starting Cinder Vault, which you can access as soon as you craft your first set of basic stone tools. Once you bring her back to your base, she'll unlock all the crafting recipes you need to get your farm up and running. Before you start planting, make sure you have all these core supplies on hand:
- 1 wooden crop plot: Crafted with 10 wood planks, 5 soil, and 2 rope at the Farmer's workbench; you can upgrade to stone plots later for longer durability
- Seeds of your choice: Can be looted from wild plants, bought from the Farmer, or processed from harvested crops at the seed bench
- A water source: Either a placed rain collector within 10 tiles of your plots, or a water skin to manually water crops if you're building in a dry biome
- Accessible sunlight: Plots can't be placed under solid roofs or inside Shroud-covered areas, or crops will stop growing immediately
A lot of new players make the mistake of trying to plant seeds directly on the ground, and that's never going to work. Enshrouded's farming system only works with dedicated crop plots, so don't waste your seeds tossing them on grass or dirt outside your base. You also don't need to use fertilizer for basic crops, but it does cut growth time by almost 40% if you have spare rot or bonemeal lying around.
Step-by-Step Process to Plant Seeds Enshrouded
First, make sure your crop plots are placed in a valid spot. I like to set up mine on the south side of my base, so they get full sunlight all day and are close enough to my storage chests that I don't have to walk far to drop off harvested crops. Avoid placing plots near steep cliffs or areas where wild mobs spawn often, as roaming enemies can sometimes trample young crops before they're fully grown. Once your plot is placed, open your interaction menu while standing next to it, and select the "plant seed" option. You'll see a list of all seeds you have in your inventory that are compatible with basic crop plots. Pick the seed you want to plant, and it will pop up in the plot as a small sprout immediately.
Next, check if the plot has access to water. If you see a small blue droplet icon above the sprout, it's already getting enough water from a nearby rain collector, so you don't need to do anything else. If you see a grey droplet with a line through it, equip your water skin, interact with the plot again, and select "water crop" to give it the moisture it needs. Most basic crops take between 10 and 15 in-game minutes to grow fully, which translates to about 2 to 3 real-world minutes. You don't have to stay near the plots while they grow, either. You can go off mining or clear a Shroud dungeon, and your crops will keep growing as long as their water and sunlight requirements are met.
Once the crop is fully grown, you'll see it towering over the plot, and you can harvest it by hitting it with any tool or even your bare fists. Each harvest gives you 2 to 4 of the crop, plus a 50% chance to get an extra seed to replant, so you can expand your farm over time without buying more seeds from the Farmer. I usually plant half my plots with berries for healing, and half with fiber for crafting bandages and building materials, so I always have a steady supply of both.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Growing Crops
Even if you follow all the basic steps, you might run into issues where your crops won't grow, or they die before you can harvest them. The most common mistake I see new players make is placing crop plots too close to Shroud edges. Even if the plot itself is not inside the Shroud, if the area gets even a little bit of Shroud fog at night, your crops will die off instantly, and you'll lose all the seeds you planted. Always leave at least a 15-tile gap between your farm and the nearest Shroud boundary to avoid this.
Another common mistake is planting seeds that are not suited to your current biome. For example, tropical seeds like pineapple and cotton will only grow in the Springveil biome, and if you try to plant them in the starting mountain biome, they'll never sprout, no matter how much water you give them. The Farmer will tell you which biomes each seed type grows best in when you buy them, so pay attention to that tooltip before you spend your hard-earned coins. You also don't want to crowd your plots too close together. If you place plots within 1 tile of each other, the crops will compete for sunlight, and their growth time will double. Leave at least 2 tiles between each row of plots to make sure every crop gets enough light, and you'll get faster harvests as a result.
A lot of people also forget to process their extra crops into seeds at the seed bench. If you only ever plant the seeds you loot from the wild, you'll never be able to expand your farm to a size that can support all your crafting needs. I set aside 1 out of every 4 crops I harvest to turn into seeds, and now I have more seeds than I could ever use, which I can trade to other players on multiplayer servers if I want.
Advanced Farming Tips to Maximize Your Harvests
Once you've got the basics of how to plant seeds enshrouded down, you can tweak your setup to get way more resources out of every plot. First, invest in fertilizer as soon as you can. You can craft fertilizer at the Farmer's workbench with 3 rot, 2 bonemeal, and 1 ash, and each bag lasts for 3 full harvest cycles on a single plot. As I mentioned earlier, it cuts growth time by almost 40%, which means you can get 2 to 3 extra harvests per hour of play. If you're growing crops for crafting high-tier gear like mage robes or explosive arrows, that extra output adds up really fast.
Next, build a greenhouse enclosure once you unlock glass crafting. Greenhouses don't just look cool: they protect your crops from bad weather (like the thunderstorms that roll through the mountain biome every few in-game days) that can sometimes damage or kill unprotected crops. They also extend the growing time for tropical crops to non-tropical biomes, so you can grow cotton and pineapples at your starting mountain base if you want, as long as you keep the greenhouse well-lit and watered. If you play on a multiplayer server, setting up a community farm is one of the best ways to support your entire group. Assign one person to tend to the crops each time you log on, and you'll never have to worry about running out of food, healing items, or crafting materials again. I run a small server with 6 of my friends, and our community farm produces enough resources that we can all focus on exploring and clearing boss fights instead of spending hours foraging every time we log on.
The last advanced tip I have is to plant rare decorative crops once you've got your basic resource farm set up. Flowers and other decorative plants can be used to spruce up your base, and some of them even give small buffs to anyone standing near them. For example, sunflowers give a small stamina regeneration buff to players within 5 tiles, so I line the path from my base entrance to my farm with sunflowers to get that extra buff every time I head out to explore.
At the end of the day, learning how to plant seeds enshrouded isn't just a fun side activity. It's a core system that can make your entire playthrough way less stressful, by giving you a reliable source of all the basic resources you need to survive and thrive in the game's dangerous world. You don't need any fancy late-game gear to get started, either. You can unlock the Farmer and set up your first 3 or 4 crop plots within your first 5 hours of play, and you'll notice the difference immediately. Don't make the same mistake I did and ignore farming for your first 20 hours of play. Give it a try the next time you log on, and you'll wonder how you ever played without a farm at your base.