The Fields and Greenhouse
When you first move to Zephyr Town, your farm has a small crop field south of your farm house. The field area is where you can grow your crops and trees. Before you can sow seeds, you need to till the field's soil using your Hoe.
As you develop your farm and bazaar size, you may earn enough money to purchase field upgrades from Wilbur. There are two additional outdoor fields you can unlock, as well as the basement greenhouse inside of your farm house.
The Outdoor Field
There are three fields you can have on your farm. The original is south of your farm house. The second is west of your house, and the third is north of the second. You can visit Wilbur at his bazaar booth and hire him to clear the land for the additional fields.
- Field #2: 30,000 G
- Field #3: 60,000 G (after you purchase Field #2)
The outdoor fields are all the same size: 9 squares by 6 squares, for a total of 54 squares. You can use all of the squares for just crops or you can plant tree. A tree takes up 9 squares of soil (a 3x3 square), so you can plant a maximum of 6 trees per crop field ( 6 x 9 = 54 ).
If you till soil and don't plant anything, the next day the soil will revert to being unused. You will have to till it again if you want to use it. This is the same for when you harvest crops; if the crop is removed from the field and isn't replaced, the unused square of soil will return to its non-tilled form.
Crops must be planted in the appropriate season. You can only grow Turnips in Spring, Tomatoes in Summer, and so on. When the season changes, all of the previous season's crops will wilt and you will have to cut them away using your Sickle. In the Winter season, the fields go dormant and you can't till or grow anything in them.
You can't pre-plant crops in preparation for the next season.
The Basement Greenhouse
After you clear the two extra fields, you can hire Wilbur to fix the broken floor in your farm house. The Basement Greenhouse costs 100,000 G and allows you to grow crops inside your house.
The basement field is the same size as the three outdoor crop fields (54 squares). The advantage to this field is that you control what season the field is set to.
In the lower-right corner of the basement you'll find a sun holder box. When Wilbur fixes the basement for you, he will place a Spring Sun into the sun holder box. As long as a specific sun stone is in the holder box, you can plant crops associated with that season in your basement; a Spring Sun allows you to grow Turnips, Potatoes, and other spring season crops. The Summer Sun and Fall Sun are sold at Diego's bazaar booth. Diego appears when your bazaar level is 75%. The suns randomly appear in his bazaar inventory if you are in year 2 or later.
When you remove a sun from the sun holder to set a new one in its place, you need to have the new sun stone in your rucksack. As soon as you place the new seasonal stone, all planted crop affected by the old stone will die. Make sure you're finished harvesting that season's crops before you swap the season in the basement.
Trees grow wonderfully in the basement and will produce their fruit if the sun is set to the correct season the tree is designed to produce fruit in. You can swap suns and the trees will not die, since they don't do so when the season's change outdoors.
The disadvantage to growing crops in the basement is that you cannot place fertilizer on the plant to increase its star rank.