Charlie's 99 Farming guide

Subject: Charlie's 99 Farming guide Thu Jul 19, 2012 1:15 pm

Charlie’s Guide to 99 Farming!

Introduction.

Farming is by far my favorite skill but I know a lot of people out there either dislike it or think of it as useless. Unlike other skills, farming isn’t dependent on the amount of money you have. Farming requires time, patience and a little bit of strategic thinking. High farming is usually considered to be linked with high combat but thats usually only because its the last skill people train to 99.

As I’m sure you all know farming is the planting and harvesting of crop - trees, herbs, bushes, etc etc. Although it may take a while to grow, the produce can become very rewarding. Farming’s also a great way to obtain money for other skills, theres also rewards that only the high leveled farmers will benefit from.

Getting seeds for farming.

Although most people buy there seeds from the grand exchange, there is also many other ways of gathering seeds for free ( primarily low level seeds ).

Seeds can be found by thieving from Master Farmers, they require 38 Thieving to thieve from and there is a chance of getting any seed except fruit and regular tree seeds.

If you don’t know already, in the spoiler is the locations of the 4 Master Farmers.

Spoiler:

Seeds can also be stolen and bought from the seed stalls in Draynor Village Market. To thieve from these you must have level 27 Thieving. Be aware that these stalls only carry lower leveled seeds so don’t expect to find any rare ones through this method.

Also, Temple Trekking mini-game provides watermelon seeds faster than thieving or getting them from monster drops. Watermelons are the highest level allotment seeds and provide great experience and as well profit.

There are 3 ways to obtain fruit and regular tree seeds through Bird’s nests:

Through Woodcutting: When chopping a tree there is a chance that a nest will fall to the ground beside you. After picking up and searching the nest you have a chance of receiving a bird egg, a ring or one of the tree seeds. Be aware that this event is random, although you can increase your chances of getting nests by wearing a rabbit foot necklace.
Taking mole hides and mole claws to Wyson the Gardener in Falador
By having your workers in your kingdom ( after completing Throne of Miscellania ) cut maple, teak and mahogany logs which will give you a chance to get a bird nest

Finally, there are a number of monsters that drop seeds as well. Like most drops, the higher the combat level the monster is, the better chance you have of receiving a better seed. This is not the easiest way to get seeds, but it is definitely an alternative and quite profitable.

Typical Process.

This is the typical farming process, although with some plants it may change but this is pretty much universal.
Use a rake on the patch to get rid of all the weeds - once you get the weeds it is recommended to put them in the compost bin rather then just dropping them, this will save you money if you ever decide to use compost.
Depending on your level and what you’re planting, use compost or super compost on the soil - super compost is only recommended for the more expensive seeds, so that you don’t lose as much money
Use your seeds on the soil, you’ll need a seed dibber but I’d recommend ( if you haven’t already ) putting one in your tool belt to free up an inventory space.
Water your plants with a watering can, when the pools have disappeared, this means they need watering again - only certain plots need watering.
When your plants are ready, harvest them. You will need a spade if you don’t already have one in your toolbelt. Plants and trees can take more than 24 hours to grow. The higher level the seed, the longer it will take to grow.

Sometimes plants become diseased and if they’re not cured before they’re fully grown, they will die. To cure plants ( excluding bushes and trees ) use a plant cure potion on them, for bushes and trees which are diseased use secateurs on them to clip off the diseased branches and leaves.

Now, for some of you, this may be too boring and a waste of time. For a small price the farmers/gardeners will look after your patches and you won’t have to worry about it at all, it will be healthy when it’s ready to harvest - I’d recommend not paying for yew trees as you only use 1 in 8 if you use super compost but it works out more expensive if you pay the gardener. Please be aware that you can’t pay to look after flowers, herbs or most of the special plant patches.

Compost.

As I mentioned earlier, composting is optional, however it is usually recommended. Adding compost to the patch before planting your seeds ( but after weeding the patch ) will increase yield and decrease the chances of disease in the plant. Theres two types of compost: normal compost and super compost. Normal compost can be bought from farming stores and can also be made. I’d recommend buying the first load of compost and then making the rest because it doesn’t take very long to grow and it ends up saving a lot of money. To make compost you need to put 15 items ( usually weeds ) in to the compost bin and close the lid. It usually takes about 45 minutes for the items to fully rot and the compost to be accessible. When it is done, open the lid and use 15 buckets on the bin to receive your compost.
You will get 4.5XP for filling a bucket with normal compost and 18XP for using the compost on a farming patch. Super compost will give you 8.5XP for filling a bucket, and 26XP for using the super compost on a patch. Don’t use tomatoes on the compost bin as they will produce rotten tomatoes not compost.
I’d recommend buying the super compost if you’re going to use it and only use it on expensive seeds.

Farming Patch Locations.

Theres many different patches spread over Runescape, all patches are marked by a spade icon on the minimap. Theres a picture of each location in the spoiler.

Spoiler:

Equipment.

Theres many different types of equipment in farming. They can be bought from the farming stores which are near every vegetable, flower and herb patch.
Theres also some quest items which help out a lot when farming. The Magic watering can is obtained from Fairy Tale III - Orks Rift and it’s pretty much just a watering can which never runs out of water. Magic secateurs are obtained from A Fairy Tale Part I and they increase the yield of vegetables, hops and herbs by 10%, these are especially helpful when you’re doing herb runs to maximise your profits.

Vegetables.

Vegetables are some of the fastest experience for lower levels. To start growing a vegetable, you will need to put 3 seeds into the Allotment. When you harvest, you will receive between 3 and 62 vegetables each time. A unique feature to vegetables is that they can be protected from disease by using flowers. To do this you’ll need to grow flowers in the respective patches before you start growing your vegetables.
Here’s a list showing which flowers protect which vegetables:
Marigold protects Onions, Tomatoes and Potatoes.
Rosemary protects Cabbage.
Nasturtiums protect Watermelons.
White lilys protect everything.
The only way to protect sweetcorn is by using a scarecrow which requires level 23 Farming to make and gives 25 XP. Scarecrows can’t be traded so here’s how you make one:
Use an empty sack on a hay bale to make a body.
Use a bronze spear on the body to stick it through.
Use a watermelon on it to create the head.
Use the scarecrow in the flower patch.
Please note, you don’t need to protect your plants with flowers if you’ve paid the gardener to take care of them.

Spoiler:

Flowers.

As I said before, flowers can protect vegetables from disease. They only need 1 seed each to be planted. Limpwurt and woad plants give 3 yield when harvested, where as the rest only give 1. Since you don’t need to care for flowers after they are fully grown and they’re not great XP, you may want to leave them in their patches to carry on protecting your vegetables.

Spoiler:

Hops.

Hops are used to make different types of beers and ales in Cooking. To start growing hops you will need to plant four seeds (Jute seeds only use three) in a hops patch. When they are fully grown, you will receive between three and twenty nine hops.

Spoiler:

[size=24]Herbs.

Herb seeds obviously need to be planted in a herb patch. You only need one seed to start growing herbs and you get between 3 and 18 herbs per patch, unless the herb is dead. When you harvest herbs they will be grimy and if you have a high enough herblore level you will be able to clean them. NOTE: Herbs do not need watering.

Spoiler:

Bushes.

To start off a bush you will need to plant just a single seed into a bush patch. When it’s finished growing you will need to check the health of it before harvesting.

Unlike other types of plants, bushes will continue to produce even after their first harvest. When a bush is fully grown it will already have produced 4 berries. After you’ve picked the berries more berries will continue to grow over time. When you want to remove a bush simply use a spade to dig it up.

Spoiler:

Trees.

To start growing regular trees, use a single seed on a plant pot full of compost, water it and after a little while it will become a sapling. When this happens, use it on the tree patch and it will start growing. Once it has finished growing you will need to check the health of the tree before you can cut it down.

These trees work exactly like normal trees, so once you have completely cut the tree down you will be left with a stump. At this point you can chose to let the tree grown again or use a spade to take it out.

After a willow tree becomes fully grown it can be prunes with secateurs to receive its branches. This gives 12XP per branch and a fully grown willow tree can give up to 6 branches at a time. Each branch takes about 30 minutes to re grow, so it will take around 3 hours for the 6 branches to grown.

Trees do not need watering. If you want to fill your own plant pots, simply have a trowel and an empty plant pot in your inventory, then use the pot on a weeded allotment.

Spoiler:

Fruit Trees.

Fruit trees require only 1 seed to be planted in a plant pot, then it needs to be watered. Once it has grown in to a sapling, you can plant it in the respective farming patch. If you want to speed up the growing process, use compost or super compost on the patch before you use the sapling on it. When the tree is fully grown, you will need to check the health of it before you can harvest fruit from it. When you first harvest it, there will be about 6 fruit to harvest and like bushes, the tree will keep regenerating fruit.

If you want to clear a fruit tree, simply pick all the fruits, chop down the tree with a hatchet and use your spade to remove the stump. Please note that fruit trees don’t need watering.

Spoiler:

Special Plants.

The biggest difference between all normal plants is that they have their own different patches located through out Runescape. Each of the special plants only requires 1 seed to be planted in their patches.

The spirit trees act like the regular teleportation trees. If you talk to it, it will take you back to the gnome maze and the main spirit tree. You can then teleport to any of the other trees from there. Please remember that until you have completed The Prisoner of Glouphrie and have at least 86 Farming you can only grown one spirit tree, if you have done that then you can plant two. Like tree seeds, cacti also regenerate their spines.

NOTE: All trees do not need watering and also note there are now farmers to watch over your spirit trees so you do not need to worry about them dying. To pay a farmer to watch over your spirit tree, you need to pay them 5 monkey nuts, 1 monkey bar and 1 ground suqah tooth.

Spoiler:

After completing Back to my Roots, you can plant the Jade Vine at a farming patch in Horacio’s garden in Ardougne. The plant will grow randomly and take between 20-48 hours to grow fully. When you check the health of it you will gain 1500 farming XP. If the vine is not cut back for a while after this, it will become wild. Attacking the level 167 Wild Vine and slaying it will give you back the seed to plant again and will also grant you 2500 Slayer XP. NOTE: you must attack it with an axe and have secateurs in your inventory.

Tool Leprechauns.

Tool leprechauns are found at every farming patch in the game. They tend to stray away from the patches but stay within site of the patch. They can store only a certain amount of items and these are: 1 rake, 1 seed dibber, 1 spade, a pair of secateurs, 1 water can, 1 gardening trowerl, 31 empty buckets, 255 compost and 255 super compost. Now though, the only things worth storing are compost and super compost because of the tool belt.
The biggest use for Tool Leprechauns is that they can note harvested crops, this is very useful during farm runs as it means you don’t have to bank in between patches.

Training Methods.

I’ve broken these down in to Beginners, Intermediate and Pro Methods. Some of you may not be able to afford to do some methods so I’ve got a variety of different price brackets for different players. One thing is for sure, bank as much as you need to, since most of these places in the guide will be very close to a bank. Dont be afraid top drop fruit, as they always grow back. However, I do recommend that you bank limpwurt roots and herbs.

Beginners

For those that can afford it and have a good amount of seeds and law runes as well as a collection of glorys, I suggest starting off at the Port Sarim patch which can be accessed by teleporting to falador and running south or to Draynor with either the glory or the loadstones. If you have the explorers ring, the cabbage patch teleport is the quickest way to get there as you only have to run north. Plant potatoes/marigolds here, then, teleport to Camelot and go east to the plot above the bank in Catherby. Plant there as well, and once you’ve finished, teleport to Ardougneand go north to the plot west of the Legends’ Guild. Then, if you have an ectophial from Ghosts Ahoy, you can teleport to Port Phasmatys to plant in the allotment to the west of the city. Once you finish there you can teleport back to port sarim and continue the loop.

Continue this method until you are able to farm asgarnian hops. If you are not able to teleport back and forth, then I would recommend you staying in the area stretching from Catherby to Ardougne. There you can run back and forth to both and in the time you are running the vegetation is growing. Once you are able to asgarnian hops you can change your course in Seers’ Village to go west to the hops patch above McGrubor’s woods. Teleport back to Camelot and run towards the Catherby patch to continue the cycle. Continue with cabbage and marigolds until you are able to farm both rosemary and tomatoes. This is for optimum growth, harvest and XP. If you wish to change as you go, then so be it.

Spoiler:

Intermediate.

Once you get to about level 30 you can consider yourself as an Intermediate Farmer. I suggest that you as well take the same cycle of patches as the beginners. From here, what you would like to do for optimum XP is plant strawberries and limpwurt roots in the flower and vegetable plots, and from there also plant ranarr seeds. In this, you can also take a small detour every few cycles by teleporting to Varrock and running down to behind champion’s guild at level 36 and plant a dwellberry bush and just water it every other 3 cycles, and wait until it gets full and then pick them and start all over. Do this same method until level 50. If you wish to annex the tree patch in Falador, then you have no need for a glory and just walk down to the patch near by the chicken den North west of Draynor.

Pro!

This is either for the pros of you out there or the people with money to spare. First, you will need tree seeds. The easiest way to obtain these is to buy them from the Grand Exchange. Another way is to get seeds from Birds nests either through Woodcutting, the Kingdom or swapping moleskins. Ten seeds in total are required, five tree and five fruit tree.

Plant all the seeds in plant pots full of compost and water them to make saplings.

Once all seed become saplings, you should be ready to start planting them. Start at Ardougne wielding a hatchet and weight reducing clothes ( agile, wicked, boots of lightness etc). it’s advisable to bring a charged glory amulet as well. Make sure your tool Leprechaun is fully stocked and you have enough runes for a Camelot teleport. Go south and take the boat to Brimhaven. Make your way to the fruit tree patch, check the health of any previous tree you planted and pick the fruits (only keep pineapples, papaya fruits and coconuts as all other products obtained from fruit trees are not necessary). Cut the tree down and remove the stump. Plant the tree, then speak to the nearby farmer and pay him or her for the trouble of growing it.

Head south of the Brimhaven patch along the western side of the building and further south until you see 5 or 6 pineapple plants. Pick an inventory full every time you are here, they are very important for payment later, or growing super compost.

Teleport to Camelot and bank your collected pineapples (and any picked fruit) and walk to Catherby. Grab another one of your fruit tree plant pots and appropriate supplies. Head east and as before, check health of your previous tree, picking the fruits and keeping them if needed. Cut it down and remove the stump, then plant as before and pay the farmer. Teleport to Al-Kharid using your glory amulet and bank your fruits (if any). Withdraw the remaining two fruit tree plant pots and their appropriate supplies. Head north to the gnome glider and fly to the Tree Gnome Stronghold. This is your chance to obtain oranges if needed. Climb down to the bottom of the stronghold and head south until you see the fruit tree patch. Repeat the procedure; check health, pick fruits, cut tree, remove stump, plant and pay the farmer. Head west until you see the spirit tree (shown on the minimap), and ask it to take you to the Khazard Battlefield. Make your way to the last farming patch west of the Tree Gnome Village. You should know what to do by now.
Use your glory amulet to teleport to Draynor Village and bank all your gatherings. Withdraw three water, one fire, four law runes, and all four of your normal tree plant pots and all their appropriate supplies. Run to the tree patch on the northwestern corner of Lumbridge Castle. Check health, and cut the tree down. Dig up the stump and you will get a root proportionate to the kind of tree you grew. Any kinds of roots may be used for super compost, but if you decide to dig up magic tree stumps, it is advisable to save the roots to craft an amulet of nature. You may choose to keep the root or drop it. Proceed to planting one of your trees and paying the farmer. Withdraw three airs, one fire and one law rune, then teleport to Varrock, make your way north/north-east to the tree patch and follow standard procedure. Teleport to Falador, head east towards the tree patch, and follow standard procedure. Make your way to the final tree patch in Taverley and follow standard procedure. Teleport to Ardpugne and bank everything.
To complete the cycle, cut willow logs or buy more seeds and wait for the old trees to mature. Then, once all have been cut down (time depends on the type of tree), simply repeat the process from step one. This is a good way to gain experience whilst doing other activities, and gives a plentiful supply of super compost materials.

I think I’ve just about covered everything I know, if you have any questions or have found something wrong with my guide just let me know!

Subject: Re: Charlie's 99 Farming guide Thu Jul 19, 2012 1:19 pm

Its a great guide and so big and detailed, makes me want to do farming, but now i know that theres way to much to remember and it gave me a head ACHE AHHHHHH =P