What the pot is like

A bright room

Use it for the top of the per-cell-per-day list, because light is the thing the room is giving you: Spinach at 3.38, Tomato at 2.98, White Beech Mushroom at 2.5. A crop that would grow in the dark is wasting a lit cell.

A room with no light

9 crops need no light at all, and they are all mushrooms. White Beech Mushroom leads them at 2.5 Satiety a cell a day. The alternative is a planter that makes its own light: a grow box supplies +2 of it and lets anything grow there while the power holds. Which planter to buy has what each supplies.

A cold snap is coming

The cold days are on the schedule: the first cold day is 23 and the first at the hardest cold is 24, so a crop that takes cold 1 is caught a day before the rest. Only 8 crops survive cold 3: Spinach, Beet, Carrot, Onion, Chives, Garlic, Matsutake, Boston Ivy. Plant one of those before the snap rather than replanting into it, because a crop in the ground when the temperature drops is the whole point of cold resistance. The forecast has every cold day in the run.

I need food back quickly

Spinach is ripe in 32 hours, and the four behind it are within 72. Check the ripe window as well as the grow time: a ripe crop stands 108 hours before it starts to decay, so a fast crop you are not home to pick is worth less than a slow one you are.

Open the crops list Every crop with its grow time, cells, light, cold tolerance and what it returns per cell per day.

Figures are the crop’s own; the daily food bill is Wage Slave‘s 48 Satiety a day. How growing itself works, what the anomalies cost and what fertiliser changes are in how growing works.

Judge a crop per pot cell, per day

A planter is a fixed number of cells. A crop that takes four cells and eight days is competing against four crops that take one cell each, so neither yield alone nor grow time alone tells you anything. What matters is Satiety per cell per day.

The crops that return the most Satiety per pot cell per day.
Crop Grow Pot cells Yield Sat each Sat/pot/day
Spinach 1.3 d 1 1× 4.5 3.38
Tomato 5 d 2 3× 10 2.98
White Beech Mushroom 2 d 1 2× 2.5 2.5
Watermelon 6.2 d 4 1× 60 2.43
Cucumber 4.8 d 4 3× 14 2.2
Shaggy Mane Mushroom 3.4 d 2 2× 7 2.04

The ordering is not intuitive. Large, slow, impressive crops lose to small fast ones: Spinach takes 1.3 days in 1 cell and beats every four-cell crop in the game.

Put that against the food bill. One cell of Spinach produces 3.38 Satiety a day, so covering Wage Slave‘s 48 Satiety takes roughly 15 cells running continuously, before any perfect harvest. Farming supplements a stockpile; on its own it needs a lot of planter.

Rooftop Garden
Every figure here is for a plain pot. A planter that grows faster or a fertiliser changes the days, not the ranking.

Every figure on this page is for a plain pot. The fastest planter cuts those 15 cells down to 10, and Premium Organic Fertilizer Fertilizer Satiety +10 200 g 1×1 cells 50.0 Satiety/kg $10 Keeps indefinitely Speed +100% takes half the time off a planting for $10.

Small Crop Seed Display
A seed's own row carries the light and the cold it needs; the shelf sells the rest.

Crops that need no light

9 crops grow with no light at all, which makes them the only option for an interior room and the only crops unaffected by a blackout.

Crops that grow in the dark, ranked by return per pot cell per day.
Crop Grow Pot cells Yield Sat/pot/day
White Beech Mushroom 2 d 1 2× 2.5
Shaggy Mane Mushroom 3.4 d 2 2× 2.04
King Oyster Mushroom 3.5 d 2 2× 2.02
Straw Mushroom 3 d 1 2× 1.67
Oyster Mushroom 3.4 d 1 2× 1.48
Poplar Mushroom 3.6 d 1 3× 1.23

They are all mushrooms, and they are the reason a windowless room is still worth planting out. Every other crop needs part shade or full light.

Crops that survive the cold

Cold resistance decides what keeps growing when the weather turns. 8 crops carry the highest rating.

Crops with the highest cold resistance.
Crop Cold tolerance Light Grow Sat/pot/day
Spinach Severe Part shade 1.3 d 3.38
Beet Severe Full light 4.1 d 1.82
Carrot Severe Full light 4.3 d 1.65
Onion Severe Full light 5.5 d 1.63
Chives Severe Part shade 3 d 1.48
Garlic Severe Part shade 6.4 d 1.25
Matsutake Severe No light 7.5 d 0.53
Boston Ivy Severe Part shade 7 d none

Plant these before a cold snap rather than after. A crop already in the ground when the temperature drops is the point of cold resistance; replanting into a cold room is not.

When you want something back quickly

The fastest crops from planting to ripe.
Crop Grow Ripe window Sat/pot/day
Spinach 32 h 108 h 3.38
Enoki Mushrooms 45 h 108 h -0.53
White Beech Mushroom 48 h 108 h 2.5
Garden Cosmos 67 h 108 h none
Straw Mushroom 72 h 108 h 1.67

The ripe window is the same 108 hours on every crop, so a fast crop you are not around to pick is worth less than a slow one you are.

What to do

  1. Fill your brightest cells with the top of the per-cell-per-day ranking. That is where the light is worth spending.
  2. Fill windowless cells with mushrooms, or put a grow box there instead. Mushrooms lose nothing to the dark and nothing to a blackout, while a grow box supplies +2 light of its own and lets anything grow in a dark room, for as long as it has power.
  3. Before day 23, plant the cold-resistant crops rather than replanting during the snap.
  4. Treat farming as what makes the stockpile last rather than what replaces it. Covering a day takes about 15 cells of the highest-yielding crop, producing without a break.

Compare all 34 crops yourself in the crops list. It sorts on the same per-pot-day measure used here.

The talent that changes this

One permanent talent extends the ripe window, which is the column a slow crop is most often lost to.

Permanent talents that move the numbers on this page, and what they reach at their top level.
Talent First level All levels At the top
Long Harvest 20 pts 90 pts Harvest window after crop maturity extended by 100% (late harvests won't rot).

Which talents to buy covers what the tree costs as a whole.

Quick reference

  • Best return: Spinach, 3.38 Satiety per pot cell per day, seed $5.
  • Grows in the dark: 9 crops, all mushrooms.
  • Highest cold tolerance: Spinach, Beet, Carrot, Onion, Chives, Garlic, Matsutake, Boston Ivy.
  • Fastest: Spinach at 32 hours.
  • A day of food takes roughly 15 cells of Spinach in a plain pot, or 10 in the fastest planter.