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You've been robbing villagers and scavenging corpses for long enough. It's time to treat yourself to a steady diet, and that means farming. Craft a hoe and find some dirt and water, and you're ready to grow your own food. Harvest will also give you more seeds to continue the cycle, or to attract animals to your growing base.

  1. 1

    Gather seeds. You can grow four types of seeds in Minecraft Pocket Edition. Here's how to find them all:

    • Wheat seeds have a chance of dropping each time you use a hoe on a grass block, or use shears on tall grass.[1] [2] [3]
    • To get beetroot seeds, harvest beetroot crops in village farms or find them in naturally generated chests.
    • Find pumpkins growing in plains, savannah or taiga biomes and villages. Craft the pumpkin to make seeds. [4]
    • Find melons growing in jungles and villages. Craft the melon to make melon slices, then craft the slices to make seeds. [5]

  2. 2

    Avoid cold or dry biomes (recommended). Crops grow fastest in warm biomes, where green grass and trees grow naturally. Although crops can grow anywhere, the following are signs of an area where growth will be slow:[6]

    • Snow
    • Frost-covered leaves
    • Steep mountainous terrain
    • Sand (except for beaches)
    • Yellowish grass

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  3. 3

    Prepare farmland. Make a hoe from two sticks and a material of your choice, and use it on grass or dirt to make farmland. You can identify farmland by the parallel lines on the surface.

  4. 4

    Water your crops. Wheat grows much faster when watered, and other crops require it to grow at all. Your farmland will become "hydrated" (and look darker) if there is any water block within four blocks. Crops will grow extremely slowly if 5 blocks away from water.[7] [8] Early in the game you'll want to farm next to an existing water source. Once you have buckets, you can transport water to use space more efficiently:

    • Extra efficient: Prepare a 9 x 9 block of farmland, dig a one-block hole in the center, and fill the hole with water.
    • Less efficient but more attractive: Prepare four rows farmland, one row water, eight rows farmland, one row water, then fours rows farmland.

  5. 5

    Wait for it to grow. Crops will grow on their own, going through several stages of growth. Here's how to tell when the crop has reached maximum potential:

    • Wheat is ready when tall and yellow-brown.
    • Beetroot is ready when it has tall, bushy leaves.
    • Melons and pumpkins are ready when the fruit appears on a block next to the stem.
    • Carrots and potatoes are ready when you can see their heads poking out of the farmland.

  6. 6

    Harvest. Just click and hold on the crop to turn it into the fully grown product. Wheat and beetroot has a chance of dropping seeds as well, so you can start a new farm.

    • Melons and pumpkins do not need replanting; just harvest the fruit and leave the stem, and it will grow a new one.
    • If you harvest wheat or beetroot before it's fully grown, you might get seeds but you will not get the food item.

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  1. 1

    Fertilize crops with bone meal. Gather bones from killing skeletons or fishing, then craft them into bone meal. Each use of bone meal instantly advances your crop by a random number of stages.

    • If you're short on seeds, this is a great plan for your first plant so you can harvest more seeds to plant.

  2. 2

    Surround the area with farmland. After you run out of seeds or water, prepare unplanted farmland in a border one block wide on all sides. In the PC version, nearby farmland significantly speeds up growth, and the same is true of Pocket Edition.[9]

  3. 3

    Fence in your crops. Wandering mobs can trample your crops. Build a fence around your farm to protect it.

  4. 4

    Keep your crops well lit. Crops only grow when exposed to light. Torches every four or five spaces will speed up growth by letting your crops grow at night as well as day. This won't have any effect if you skip nights by sleeping in a bed.[10]

    • Oddly enough, farmland is transparent. Dig beneath your farm (careful to avoid the water) and place torches there to make your farm glow.[11]

  5. 5

    Cover the water. Walking through your crops doesn't break them, but jumping on the farmland can turn it right back to normal dirt.[12] If you fall in to the water and are forced to jump out, you'll be losing food. Prevent this by covering the water with slabs or other "half height" blocks that don't require jumping to walk onto.

    • Lily pads are great for this, as they are both a functional and decorative feature of your garden.
    • In cold biomes, covering the water will also prevent it from freezing.

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Add New Question

  • Question

    How high should I place my fences?

    Community Answer

    Your fences should be more than one block high to prevent mobs from being able to jump over them. The Minecraft blocks are 1 block and a little bit, hence the posts. Make sure there are no other blocks around the fence as any mob can jump over the fence using the surrounding blocks.

  • Question

    How do I find carrots and potatoes?

    Community Answer

    They are found in villages, dungeons and strongholds, so you have to do a lot of exploring.

  • Question

    How do I feed the crops with bone meal?

    Community Answer

    Take the bone meal and right click your crop. Green sparkles will appear around it and it will grow.

  • Question

    How do I get water in a bucket?

    Community Answer

    To get a bucket, you have to mine iron first. After that, you should be able to craft a bucket. Once you have your bucket, find a water source, and collect some water by taping it with your bucket. You should now have your water bucket.

  • Question

    When I try to harvest the beetroot, all it does is either give me nothing or give me the seeds. How can I get the food?

    Community Answer

    It might not be fully grown. Usually it takes 2-3 Minecraft days to have a crop fully grown.

  • Question

    How do I chop down wheat in Minecraft?

    Community Answer

    Use a gardening hoe and tap the wheat. If it doesn't work like that, stand closer or further away. Or destroy the block where the wheat is growing.

  • Question

    How do I get beetroot seeds?

    Community Answer

    You can get beetroot seeds by breaking a grass block, although they are much less common than wheat seeds. You also get beetroot seeds every time you harvest a beetroot crop (which is commonly found in villages).

  • Question

    What if I can't find any grass?

    Community Answer

    You're in a cold biome, move somewhere else. If you can't do it, then edit your world.

  • Question

    Can I use bonemeal in PE?

    Community Answer

    Yes, you can. Collect bones from skeleton mobs, go to your crafting table, and make some bonemeal. Click on your crop(s), and a little green sparkle will surround the crop you have fed.

  • Question

    How do I create bone meal on Minecraft PE for the Play Station 3?

    Community Answer

    Kill some Skeletons. Then, go to your crafting table and craft bone meal.

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  • The seeds usually grow in two or three Minecraft days, if they get plenty of light and water.

  • It's easiest to see the change in color for mature plants at the base of the plant, not the top.

  • To acquire seeds or crops easily, find a village and steal their crops.

  • You also can plant trees in Minecraft.

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  • Do not harvest the crops with anything other than your fists, or you may destroy them.

  • Farmland is usually flatter than most of your Minecraft projects. It's extra important to create a landmark nearby if the farm isn't next to your house.

  • Some potatoes that you harvest will be poisonous. Double check the item tag if the potato you have harvested does not go into the stack of other potatoes, or if it has a slight yellow tint to it.

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