Farming in Windrose is deliberately simple. There is no watering, no fertilizer, no sunlight rule, no wilt state, and no tiered progression through composter or greenhouse structures. The player places one of two planting structures (Seedbed or Ground Plants), waits for a global growth timer of roughly 70 minutes, and harvests. Seeds return 1:1 at harvest, which enables a permanent self-sustaining loop once enough seeds are acquired.
The Only Station: Seedbed
The Seedbed is the only dedicated farming structure. It is built in the farming tab of the base build menu. Each Seedbed has four planting slots (one at each corner) and is built from 5 Fertile Soil. Once placed, a Seedbed is also the soil. There is no additional per-crop soil cost. Placement rules and surface requirements are covered in detail on the Seedbed Placement page.
Three crops (Shrub, Ficus, Palm) are Ground Plants. They can be placed directly on the terrain anywhere on the plot without a Seedbed and without any Fertile Soil cost. The four-slot-per-Seedbed rule does not apply to Ground Plants.
Growth
Aspect | Rule |
|---|---|
Time to grow | Approximately 70 minutes of real-world time. |
Per-crop variance | None documented; all crops share the same global timer. |
Offline progression | Yes. Crops continue to grow while the game is closed. |
Water / fertilizer / sunlight | None required. |
Failure states | None. Crops do not wilt, rot, or fail. |
For a deeper breakdown of the timer, stages, and scheduling, see Crop Growth.
Harvest and Seeds
Harvesting a Seedbed plant returns the seed used plus the crop product. Planting 25 seeds across six Seedbeds and waiting out the growth returns 25 seeds at harvest, enabling a permanent loop. This is the main reason early-game farming investments never go to waste: the seed pool is a one-time gather.
Ground Plants (Shrub, Ficus, Palm) follow the same seed-returns-on-harvest rule. Palm Seeds are slightly harder to source: they only drop from trees deeper inland in the Coastal Jungle, not from beach-edge palm trees.
Crop Reference
The eight Seedbed crops and three Ground Plants confirmed in the current build are listed below. Seeds for the Seedbed crops are bought from vendors or gathered from the wild, then return on every harvest, so the table doubles as a shopping list for a first farm.
Crop | Type | Primary Use |
|---|---|---|
Only source of Plant Fiber for fabric (armor and sails) | ||
Cooking ingredient | ||
Cooking ingredient | ||
Cooking ingredient | ||
Cooking ingredient | ||
Cooking ingredient; wild Leeks grow at Cursed Swamps ruins | ||
Cooking ingredient | ||
Cooking ingredient (also called Batata) | ||
Ground Plant | Placed directly on terrain; no Fertile Soil cost | |
Ground Plant | Placed directly on terrain; no Fertile Soil cost | |
Ground Plant | Seeds drop from inland Coastal Jungle trees only |
Windrose is in Early Access, so this roster will likely grow over time. Saplings such as Aloe, Banana, and Bromeliad can also be raised once their seeds are obtained, so a mature base often mixes food, fiber, and decorative plants on the same plot.
Fertile Soil
Seedbeds require Fertile Soil as their construction ingredient. Fertile Soil is mined with a pickaxe from small raised dirt mounds at Ancient Farm ruins in the Foothills. A secondary source exists at ruins in the Cursed Swamps (Leeks grow in these specifically). Access to the Foothills is gated behind defeating the Coastal Jungle boss, Thomas Richards.
Detail | |
|---|---|
Gather tool | Pickaxe, used on raised dirt mounds |
Primary location | Ancient Farm ruins in the Foothills |
Secondary location | Ruins in the Cursed Swamps |
Cost per Seedbed | |
Gate | Foothills access requires beating the Coastal Jungle boss |
One Seedbed costs 5 Fertile Soil, so a typical mid-game farm of six Seedbeds needs 30 Fertile Soil. Players commonly gather a stack of 100 or more on the first Foothills trip to avoid repeat runs.
Farming Contractor (Automation)
The Farming Contractor is a Tortuga NPC that runs a parallel crop cycle passively. It is not a placeable structure and does not compete with Seedbeds; both systems run in parallel, so a stocked home farm and an active contract job can return crops at the same time. The contractor is hired once at the recruitment desk and then takes a fresh job whenever you have the seeds to spare.
Property | Value |
|---|---|
Recruitment cost | 10 Gold Coins (Guineas) at the Tortuga Recruitment Vendor |
Per-job cost | 20 Silver Coins plus 50 seeds of the chosen crop |
Job duration | Approximately 8 hours of real-world time, including while offline |
Return | All 50 seeds returned plus a large bulk yield of the crop |
Because the job returns the full 50 seeds, the contractor never drains the seed pool. The practical pattern is to queue a Flax contract before a long sailing session or before logging off, so a bulk fiber haul is waiting at the next login on top of whatever the home Seedbeds produced.
Early-Game Priority: Flax
Flax is the single most important seedbed crop because it is the only source of Plant Fiber used for fabric, which feeds every armor and sail recipe. Sails in particular get burned through faster than new players expect, so a steady fiber supply directly gates ship progression. Community-consensus guidance is to dedicate 15 to 20 Seedbed slots to Flax as soon as Fertile Soil is accessible. The other crops are nice-to-have; Flax is the engine.
Quick Start
Beat the Coastal Jungle boss to unlock the Foothills.
Mine a large stack of Fertile Soil from the Ancient Farm dirt mounds with a pickaxe.
Build several Seedbeds (5 Fertile Soil each) on flat, exposed ground.
Buy or gather a starter batch of Flax Seeds and fill the corner slots.
Plant before sailing out, harvest on return; the returned seeds refill the next planting for free.
See Also
Seedbed Placement - placement rules and surface requirements
Crop Growth - detailed growth-timer breakdown
Farming Contractor - Tortuga-based crop automation
Fertile Soil - Seedbed construction material