Here are some self-sustaining crop combinations for optimal recolts of giant vegetables all year long, with minimum input and maximum production. You can skip the material and preparation parts if you already know how to handle stress and farming matters.
 
 

Introduction

This guide will display the basics you’ll need to start a farm and how to handle plants stress and preparations, followed by some self-sustaining crop combinations for optimal recolts of giant vegetables all year long, with minimum input and maximum production.
 
 
The primary aim is to provide combinations that give each other needed nutrients and grow in same seasons, thus only needing care and water. With that in mind, the combinations proposed are firstly meant to give you the maximum amount of vegetables with minimum input, along with notifications of alternative crops filling the same purpose (same nutrients, at least one season in common) if you are specifically looking for these. Keep in mind that in term of optimal input and output, the first combination proposed is always superior. Consequently, corn, asparagus and durian aren’t in the list as they don’t fit well into efficient combinations, and aren’t needed in any useful exclusive recipe anyway.
 
 
 

What you’ll Need to Start Farming

First, back to basics. Here is a list of what you’ll need from the wild :
 

• Manure
• As much wild seeds as you can get
• All the ressources needed for the crafting

and what you have to craft :
 

• A digamajig to create farm plots (3 boards, 2 ropes, 2 flints)
• A hoe to tile the farm plot (2 twigs, 2 flints)
• A hammer to break giant crops (3 twigs, 3 stones, 6 grass)
• Watering cans (2 boards, 1 rope)
• A birdcage to turn vegetables into corresponding seeds (2 papyrus, 6 gold, 2 seeds)
• A bird trap to catch the needed bird (3 twigs, 4 silks)
• Chests to store seeds and farm material (3 boards for each)
• Optionally, a composting bin for compost (3 boards, 1 rot, 1 grass)

 
 
 

Producing Giant Vegetables and Preparing your Farming Plot

Stress
 
Plants know 4 growths from seed to harvestable vegetable, at which they can gain stress points from 7 differents sources :

• season (stress if is off-season)
• ground moisture (if on dry soil for more than 10% of its phase)
• nutrients (if lacking the nutrients consumed at each growth)
• overcrowding (if 11 plants or more on the plot)
• family (if less than 3 others plants of the same type within 4 meters, with plants on farm plots nearby counting in)
• happiness (if not talked to or attended by a fruit fly)
• killjoys (if killjoys, rotten plants or garden detritus within 6 meters)

In total, a plant can have up to 28 stress points once fully grown, but you want it to have the less stress possible. With 12 stress or more, the plant only give a vegetable. Between 7 and 11, one vegetable and 1 crop seed. Between 2 and 6, one vegetable and 2 crop seeds. At 0 or 1, the plant give a giant crop.
 
Due to “family” stress, the combinations proposed below need 2 adjacent farm plots to not stress the plants that are at less than 4 on a single plot, and need the presence of others on touching edges. Thus, you need to grow these plots in pair. Doing this will yield you giants crops for all plants at all time, if you water them and talk to them, or get the fruitfly to do it for you. At this point, a fruitfly and the rains of spring garantee you a giant production with just planting the seeds in the ground, and watering in other seasons (especially summer).
 
 
Preparation
 
To prepare a farm plot for the optimized production, plant only potatoesso they increase growth formula and compost to the max, then fill the plot with manureafter the harvest (guano from the caged bird or batilisks, or just simple manure from beefs or pigmen).
 
Alternatively, you can use cornfor the same purpose (especially in summer, a season the potato doesn’t like), and need to put in compostinstead of manure (just use the compost bin for that, it’s the easiest way). One cycle of monoculture is enough to get the nutrients high enough to not care about it afterward, as long as you use self-sufficient combinations.
 
 
Potatoes and corn crops come easy as they are among the plants that have the biggest chances to spawn from basic seeds, so you’ll probably get a good bunch of them while looking for the crops you want for optimized production.
 
 
Watering
 
For watering, be farsighted. Find a pond and fill multiples watering cans you can put somewhere near your farm. It’s easier to fill multiples cans in one journey than go back and forth each time. And it’s really useful for winter, when ponds are frozen and your only alternative is putting ice 1 by 1 in the can. To not stress, the plant as to be on wet soil more than 10% of its phase, so watering the farm plot at least one per growth stage is recommended, except in spring, where the rains should normally cover the water needs.
 
 
 

The Best Crop Combinations

Here are 3 crop combinaisons that are auto-sufficient in nutrients (thus only need planting, caring and watering), and sustain you all year long :
 

• 4 potatoes, 4 carrots and 2 garlic (porolic plantation)

Simply the best combinaison considering pure food output and needed input, 10 plants on a plot (max allowed to avoid overpop stress), grow nice and steady from autumn to spring, and drink the least out of all self-sustain combinaisons (0,075 per second per farm plot, 4,5 per minut). All of this make it the most reliable for farming.
 
 
The only inconvenience is that the garlic has a low chance to sprout from the basic seeds you need to start with, contrary to potatoes and carrots (you can even feed “wild” carrots to your caged bird if you want to get carrots seeds earlier). But anyway, when you plant the dozens seeds you gather on your way, garlic will pop sooner or later, and it’s not a problem as soon as you have 2 crops (give first garlics to the bird). You can already start production on one plot and keep them under 6 stress (only due to no-family), if you talk to them and water the plot. If you keep them under 7 stress, you’ll get the 4 crops you need to start your 2-plots production and get giant garlic aswell. If you keep it under 12, you get 2 garlic and 2 seeds, so just feed your 2 garlics to the bird and you can go for the 2-plot prod.
 
 
You can replace potatoes with eggplants and carrots with pumpkins if you want these specifically, but they don’t match all seasons and drink a bit more water.
 
 
Sometimes a bit hard to squeeze all 10 vegetables in one plot, but totally possible even without Wormwood, if you start tiling from a corner, planting in it and tiling again the closest, on the border of the farmplot.
 

• 6 tomatoes and 3 pepper

Essentially the summer combinaison, in addition to the porolic plantation. Limited to 9 per plot, you can switch to it at summer and keep it for autumn, but I advise switching back to the other at the start of autumn because it just produces more for less.
 
This combinaison drinks way more than what you would be used to with the porolic plantation (0,2325 per sec, 13,95 per min, 3,1 times the porolic), so you will have to water it often (even more considering it’s summer).
 
You can replace the pepper with dragon fruit, but it’s rarer to find in seeds, so do so only if you want the dragon fruit.
 

• 6 watermelons and 3 onions

A spring-summer combinaison, if you need watermelons for fashion melon, melonsicles or other recipes requiring fruits. Remember that watermelons are fruits and not vegetable, thus not fit in a lot of recipes. You can replace onions with pommegranates for full fruits, but they are rarer to get from random seeds, so it’s not the easiest summer combinaison to make. Be careful that this combination drinks A LOT (0,27 per sec or 16,2 per min, so 3,6 times the porolic). While not that much of a problem in spring thanks to rain, you need to water more frequently in summer if you want to have giant crops, due to plants consumption and high temperature during summer drying your plot faster. If you want these in giant size, you got to work to have them.
 
 
All the datas behind these combinations come from the wiki – [fandom.com] , which you can consult if you need any information on vegetables and what you can cook with it.
 
 
With all that, you are ready to start your own industrial production of ridiculously large vegetables !
 
 
 

A Note on the Benefits of Weeds Plots

If you want to get rid of weeds as fast as you spot them in your crops, you may also need them. Fire nettle trades a bit of health and sanity for a good heat boost during 1 minute, by touching the plant or eating the leaf. Forget-me-lot makes a nice soothing tea restoring 45 sanity, with honey and ice. Tillweedscan be used for a health regen item, but not that useful once you get nice food like pierogies for healing. They rot in 3 days (10 for tillweeds) and faster on the ground if you need any, and can all go into the compost bin. For all this, it’s always nice to have a plot separated from your farm for weeds. You can fill it with as many crops as you can in hope for weeds, then pick them up indefinitely without any concern for moisture or nutrients.
 
 

 
 
Here we come to an end for Don’t Starve Together Farming and Crop Combinations hope you enjoy it. If you think we forget something to include or we should make an update to the post let us know via comment, and we will fix it asap! Thanks and have a great day!