Types of Plants You Can Farm in Minecraft

You can farm a variety of plants in Minecraft, some of which provide food, some that you can trade or sell to make profit, and some that you can use to make important utensils. Understanding all of your plant options is also important when designing a garden!

Wheat, carrots, and potatoes

Wheat, carrots, and potatoes are relatively simple to farm. Simply follow these steps:

1. Collect seeds and vegetables.

   Breaking tall grass blocks or tilling grass blocks sometimes provides wheat seeds. You can find carrots and potatoes in villages or by killing zombies.

2. Right-click the farmland to plant seeds, carrots, or potatoes.

   Tiny, green stems appear on the block.

3. Wait until the crops are fully grown.

   Wheat is mostly yellow and brown when it's fully grown, and carrots and potatoes are ready to harvest when the heads of the vegetables begin to emerge. Work on other tasks while you wait. You can also use bone meal (crafted from skeleton bones) to grow crops instantly.

4. Break the crop blocks to obtain your profit.

   Replant seeds, carrots, and potatoes until your farmland is refilled, and keep the remainder as profit. Here's what a thriving farm looks like:

   

Melons and pumpkins

Growing large plants such as melons and pumpkins takes quite a bit of work. Follow these steps to start a farm similar to this one:

1. Collect seeds.

   You can find both melon and pumpkin seeds in treasure chests hidden in abandoned mineshafts. In addition, naturally found pumpkins can be crafted into seeds. Melon seeds can be crafted from melon slices, which you can get by trading with villagers.

2. Right-click the farmland to plant seeds.

   Unlike wheat, this farmland has to be adjacent to grass or dirt. When these seeds grow into stalks, they tip over and grow melons or pumpkins next to them. To grow lots of melons or pumpkins, till a row of farmland next to a row of dirt, with water pools spaced throughout.

3. Wait.

   Using bone meal on seeds speeds them into mature stalks, though they don't yet bear fruit. Pumpkins and melons take a while to grow. Ensure that these crops have growing space, and work on other tasks in the meantime.

4. Harvest the crops.

   Don't break the stalk blocks — instead, break the pumpkin and melon blocks that appear nearby. If you've grown pumpkins, you can craft them into pumpkin seeds to expand your farm. If you've grown melons, breaking the blocks produces melon slices that can be eaten or crafted into seeds.

Sugar cane

Sugar cane consists of green reeds that grow naturally near bodies of water, and collecting at least one sugar cane block is enough to start a farm, similar to the one shown in the following image. Sugar cane is useful to mass-produce: Paper and items such as bookcases require a lot of reeds to craft, and you can make sugar for items such as cake and potions of swiftness. Sugar cane is easy to farm:

1. Find (or make) a place that holds water.

   Reeds grow only near lakes or pools. They can grow only on grass, dirt, or sand.

2. Place canes next to the water in the same way you would place any block.

   When a patch of reeds is placed where it can grow, it extends vertically until it's three blocks tall.

3. After the sugar cane is fully grown, harvest all but the bottom block.

   When you break the stalk blocks in the middle, the top section breaks down into items. The reeds at the bottom begin growing again.

The essential concept here is to plant a short patch of reeds, let it grow, and then mow it down so that it can grow again.

Cacti

Cacti are desert plants that can be used for creating traps or making green dye. (Refer to the small cactus farm shown in the preceding figure.) You can typically find cacti in the desert, and you can grow them similarly to sugar cane. However, growing them is unique because they

• Require no water and must be placed on sand.

• Cannot be placed next to other blocks.

• Are sharp, and they destroy items.

Cocoa beans

Cocoa beans are used to make brown dye and as an ingredient in cookies. The best way to find cocoa beans is to explore a jungle — the beans are found in pods growing off the trees. Though green and yellow pods aren't fully matured, orange ones provide several cocoa beans when you smash them.

Farming cocoa beans is easy. To place a pod, right-click some jungle wood while holding cocoa beans. Then break the pod when it turns orange to harvest lots of cocoa beans. Make a large wall of jungle wood to start your farm.

Nether wart

You can find nether wart growing in special rooms in the nether fortress. You can pick up nether wart by breaking fully grown crops, as shown in the following image. Nether wart is useful for brewing potions. You can farm nether wart by planting it in soul sand blocks and waiting for it to grow, similarly to wheat. (You don't need to till soul sand.)

Trees

Tree farms are usually useful only when you live in a place with few trees nearby or when you want a wood source while underground. To grow trees, collect saplings — occasionally dropped when breaking leaf blocks — and then right-click to place them on dirt or grass in a well-lit area. (Remember that trees need lots of space to grow.)

If you plant a square of four jungle saplings and apply bone meal to one of them, a giant tree grows.