Gardening (The Sims 3)

Gardening is a skill in The Sims 3. The skill is augmented by the Green Thumb trait, and the Super Green Thumb lifetime reward. It involves (as with gardening in real life and the previous Sims games) the planting, growing and harvesting of various plants that Sims can find within the game. Unlike the previous Sims games, The Sims 3 gardening has been much expanded upon, introducing many real-life plants and several fictional species such as the 'Life Fruit', 'Flame Fruit', and 'Plasma Fruit'.

Some expansion packs include more varieties of plant collections. Some of the plants can be used as ingredients for Nectar Making and Mixology, with the key ingredients for Nectar Making being the grapes from Champs Les Sims. With Ambitions, Sims can register as a self-employed Gardener. Gardening can be profitable by selling the harvested produce from the inventory, supermarket, or consignment store.

Only teens and older can tend gardens. Children cannot learn the Gardening skill, but they can learn the Child Gardening hidden skill. Once a child grows up into a teenager, they will earn Gardening skills at the same level of their Child Gardening and Scouting hidden skills.

Once a Sim has maximized their Gardening skill, they will receive a certificate in the mailbox a few days later, along with a notification saying: "The Dillinger Diggers Guild congratulates you, [Sim name], for achieving the very highest level of excellence in bringing life forth from our fertile Earth. Please accept this handsomely framed certificate and display it with pride knowing others will see just how skilled you are."

Statistics

 * Number Planted
 * Unique Plants Planted
 * Items Harvested
 * Perfect Items Harvested
 * Unknown Seeds Planted
 * Best Harvestable
 * Money Earned
 * Largest Money Bag Harvested

Challenges
A Master Planter must plant 19 types of plant that can be planted in the game. Once you have mastered the varieties you will be able to reduce weed growth significantly on future plants.
 * Master Planter

Botanical Bosses must harvest at least 75 Perfect fruits and vegetables. After so many Perfect harvestables, the plants of Botanical Bosses almost never die from neglect.
 * Botanical Boss

Master Farmers have harvested at least 650 fruits and vegetables. The plants of Master Farmers remain watered and fertilized longer, meaning their gardens are more efficient.
 * Master Farmer

Plants
Plants and seeds can be planted at home. Seeds can be found on the ground throughout the town or upon reaching level 1, while plants can be found from the supermarket, vegetable stand, or harvesting from wild plants.

Several plants are exclusive to premium Store contents. These plants are only included by purchasing certain premium contents (which are usually part of a set or venue) and installing them to the game. The plants and the premium contents are as following:
 * Humble Harvest Stands: lemon and purple eggplant
 * Grandpa's Grove Tractor: orange
 * Bohemian Fruit and Nuts: blackberry, blueberry, cocoa, peach, pear, pecan, raspberry, and strawberry
 * Canning Station: cucumber, corn

Quality & varieties
Harvested produce has a quality ranging from horrifying, putrid, foul, bad, normal, nice, very nice, great, excellent, outstanding, and perfect. Higher quality produce is worth more for selling and will have increased strength as fertilizer. The quality of the harvested produce roughly corresponds to the quality of the plants. Thus, an excellent apple tree will usually bear excellent apples, however there is a chance of harvesting higher quality produce.

Produce can be used for the following:
 * Cooking ingredients
 * Nectar Making ingredients
 * Mixology ingredients
 * Alchemy ingredients
 * Jam and preserve ingredients
 * Science samples
 * Fishing baits

Generally, plants are used for ingredients. Store plants are usually used to complement other premium contents:
 * Lemons are used to create lemonades from the lemonade stand. The lemonade stand is part of Humble Harvest Stands premium content.
 * Lemons and purple eggplants are ingredients of some of the pizzas from the wood fire oven. The wood fire oven is part of Monte Vista special premium content.
 * Plants from Bohemian Fruit and Nuts premium content are ingredients of most recipes for the Baker's Station premium content.

Additionally, produces can be used to create jams and preserves with Canning Station premium content.

Some plants also have their own unique variety, which makes them have other usages aside from ingredients.

Mushrooms
Mushrooms are plants that came from Supernatural. The common use of mushroom is for Alchemy ingredients. Some mushrooms are edible and can be used as a food ingredient, i.e. truffles, porcinis, and white caps; while the others are inedible. Collecting wild mushrooms is also part of the Collecting challenges. Collecting 7 of them will increase the quality of mushrooms grown. Harvested mushrooms don't count to the challenge.

Edible mushrooms:
 * Porcinis
 * White Caps
 * Truffles

Inedible mushrooms:
 * Red Toadstool
 * Mycenas
 * Spotlight Mushroom
 * Glow Orbs

Herbs
Herbs are plants that came from University Life. Herbs are related to Rebel social group. Herbs can be used as an addition to meal or herbal drink, burned in bonfire or fireplace, or eaten raw, which will give a moodlet and various certain effects. The moodlet time is based on how the herb is consumed: 8 hours if eaten raw, 5 hours if added to meal, 3 hours from herbal drink, and 2 hours from being burned. There's a 15% chance the herb will cause herb nausea when consumed, which will increase or decrease based on the quality of the herb.

Below is the list of herbs and its effects:
 * Peppermint - No effect
 * Chamomile - Increases social group influence gain by 15%
 * Cinnamon - May increase the effect of romantic interactions
 * Greenleaf - Increases weight loss rate by 20%
 * Basil - Increases performance gain by 5% and opportunity reward by 10%
 * Bumbleleaf - Extends the "On Fire" moodlet to 4 hours
 * Buzzberry - Increases Athletic skill gain by 15%
 * Ginseng - May decrease energy need decay
 * Lavender - Increases energy need gain by 10%
 * Licorice - Decreases hunger need decay by 30%
 * Wonderpetal - Increases academic performance gain by 10%
 * Sweet Grass - Removes "Nauseous", "Visceroidal Nausea", "Virtually Nauseous", "Seasick", "Herb Nausea", and "Buzz Crashed" moodlets. Does not remove "Liquid Crash" and "Food Poisoning" moodlets, however.

Coffee beans
Coffee beans are plants that came from University Life. Coffee beans can be consumed raw or as coffee drink from the barista bar. Coffee beans cannot be used as any ingredients or for the espresso maker. Consuming coffee bean will give various moodlets, which work like "Buzzed" moodlet from drinking coffee, which will temporarily override "Sleepy", "Tired", and "Exhausted" moodlets, as well as getting "Buzz Crashed" when the effect expires.

Below is the list of coffee beans:
 * Midnight Bean
 * Kona Bean
 * Red Berry Bean
 * Cortado Bean
 * Maui Bean

Crystal flowers
Crystal flowers are plants that came from Into the Future. The main use of crystal flowers is as ingredients to create trait chips for plumbots. A crystal flower has 5 types of emotional charges. The common emotional charge is neutral. Sims can charge a crystal flower so the emotional charge will turn into either kindness, laughter, love, or rage. After that, they must charge the flower regularly, or the emotional charge will lose its power and eventually turn back into neutral. Sims can also neutralize the flower to change the emotional charge to neutral instantly.

When the flowers are harvested, Sims can harness the flower or imbue it to other Sims. When harnessed, the flower will grant a special moodlet to the user. Only non-neutral flowers can be harnessed.

Money tree
Money tree is a special tree that has money bill leaves and grows money bags. Sims can harvest the money bags and exchange them for money. Sims can receive the seed from certain opportunities, fishing, analyzing an unknown special seed, and so on.

If tended well, money trees will never die. However, should it be neglected too long and perish, it will explode and leave many bills behind.

Special plants
The following plants have the rarity of special. Sims can plant these seeds after they've completed certain opportunities. Completing the Uncommonly Good opportunity will grant the ability to plant cheeses and eggs. Completing the Outstandingly Rare opportunity will grant the ability to plant steaks and patties. Completing The Omnificent Plant grants the ability to plant omni plant and order its seed from the mailbox. These opportunities can only be received in order, but not necessarily consecutively. This is because The Omnificent Plant requires Sims to plant outstanding steaks and Outstandingly Rare requires Sims to plant excellent cheeses.

Omni plant is a special plant which can be used to replicate many things. The plant can be fed with items, and once the plant is on its harvest state, Sims can harvest whatever the plant was fed with. The following are items that can be fed to the omni plant:
 * Books (general, fishing, skill, toddler, written, and sheet music)
 * Ingredients (harvestable produce, fish, and grocery ingredients)
 * Candles
 * Rubber duckies
 * Teddy bears
 * Toy box toys

There are several things to consider about the items that can be fed to:
 * Cooking recipes, alchemy recipes, and comic books cannot be fed to omni plants. This means that the players cannot exploit Ambrosia recipe book worth §12,000.
 * Not all plants are considered as ingredients. Death flowers, forbidden fruit, and crystal flowers cannot be fed to omni plants in particular.
 * Inedible plants may still be considered as ingredients, such as kelp, inedible mushrooms, mandrake root, and wolfsbane flower.
 * Imaginary friend doll is considered as a teddy bear, but cannot be fed to omni plants nonetheless.

Fertilizer
Fertilizer can be used to increase the plant speed growth. Fertilizer does not affect the quality of the plant or produce. Most ingredients can be used to fertilize plants, as well as horse fertilizer from the horse stall. Below is the list of fertilizers, the time the effect lasts, and the grade.

Depending on the quality of the fertilizer, the value and length can be modified. The fertilizer value will be multiplied according to the multipliers, and the length will be added with extra days. Furthermore, completing the Master Farmer skill challenge will benefit Sims by giving additional 2 days for any fertilizers.

Achievements
The following achievemtns from The Sims 3 Website can be unlocked through the activities involving gardening skill:

Tips

 * Sims can use a sprinkler to water plants in a 5x5 area. It can be turned on and run indefinitely. Sims can upgrade the sprinkler with Auto-Water so it will run between 4 AM and 7 AM, but it has to be turned off first.
 * Science skill helps aid Sims with gardening. The higher a Sim's Science skill is, the more chance they will harvest extra produce, boost the harvested produce quality, and increase the seed quality.
 * The harvester can be used to harvest multiple plants at once.
 * Selling the produce in the supermarket is worth 10% higher than selling from inventory, and even more if sold in consignment store.
 * Sims can plant indoors with the planter bowls from Supernatural or soil rugs from Into the Future.
 * Unicorns and fairies can use their abilities to grow up the plants one level higher, up to their harvestable state.
 * The following traits are suggested to help with Gardening:
 * The Green Thumb trait increases the quality of plant produce when they plant a seed or harvest produce.
 * The Loves the Outdoors trait will create a positive moodlet when Sim is outdoors.
 * The Eco-friendly trait will create a positive moodlet when gardening.
 * The Gatherer trait increases the quality of produce harvested from seeds the Sim plants.
 * Several premium Store contents are released to help Sims with gardening utilities. The premium contents are as following:
 * SwiftGro Gardening Station, which can be used to identify unknown seeds, water plants instantly, talk to plants, and use composter to fertilize the plants.
 * Plants Vs. Zombies™ Sunflower, which produces sun that can be used as an excellent-quality fertilizer.
 * Grandpa's Grove Tractor, a set of a tractor and track pieces, which can be used to tend, water, fertilize, and harvest a large amount of plants at once, so long as the plants are within the range of the track, approximately 8 tiles away.