Hytale Farming Guide: Crops, Seeds, Watering & Fertilizer

Farming in Hytale runs through the Farmer's Workbench, which makes the hoe, the seed bags and the fertilizer. This guide covers the loop from tilling to harvest, every crop and the bench tier it needs, what makes crops grow faster, and Eternal Seeds. It uses the Hytale Wiki and the official patch notes, listed under Sources at the end.

What You Need

• Farmer's Workbench: 6 tree trunks and 20 plant fiber, made at a Workbench (Crafting tab).
• A hoe: the Crude Hoe takes 4 tree trunks and 3 stone at the Farmer's Workbench. Since Update 2, hoes unlock at different Farmer's Workbench tiers.
• Seed bags: made at the Farmer's Workbench from Essence of Life, for example 2 for a Wheat Seed Bag and 3 for a Carrot Seed Bag.

The Farming Loop

• Use a hoe on grass, dirt, mud or another soil block to turn it into Tilled Dirt.
• Use a seed bag on the Tilled Dirt, or on a planter, to plant it.
• Crops grow over in-game time. Tilled Dirt with nothing planted on it turns into mud after about 1.2 to 1.5 days.
• Harvest mature crops for their produce plus Essence of Life, which pays for more seed bags. Now and then a harvest also drops an Eternal seed bag.
• A sickle harvests several crops in one swing. Update 4 added Copper and Iron Sickles at the Farmer's Workbench.

Make Crops Grow Faster

• Water: fill an Empty Watering Can (3 Iron Ingots at the Farmer's Workbench) at any water and use it on Tilled Dirt or the crop. Watered crops grow 2.5 times faster for one in-game day (48 minutes). Hold the button to water a 3 by 3 area; a full can waters 50 blocks. Rain also waters soil that has a crop on it.
• Fertilizer: a Fertilizer Bag (10 Poop, 10 Essence of Life and 5 vegetables at a tier 3 Farmer's Workbench) doubles growth speed on the Tilled Dirt you use it on. The effect lasts until the block is broken or decays, and each bag has 5 uses.
• Planters: they grow crops too, but they cannot be watered or fertilized, so Tilled Dirt is faster.

Every Crop and Its Bench Tier

Seed bags for these 15 crops come from the Farmer's Workbench. The tier is the bench level each one needs; the number in brackets is how many memories unlock that crop's Eternal seed bag.

• Tier 1: Sunflower, Wheat (10), Lettuce (10)
• Tier 2: Carrot (25), Corn (25)
• Tier 3: Cauliflower (25), Turnip (25)
• Tier 4: Aubergine (50), Pumpkin (50)
• Tier 5: Tomato (50), Chilli (50)
• Tier 6: Cotton (100), Rice (100)
• Tier 7: Onion (200), Potato (200)

Kweebec traders sell three kinds of berry bush. Nine more plants come from the Alchemist's Workbench; they only grow on Crystallized dirt and cannot be watered or fertilized.

Essence of Life

Essence of Life is the currency of farming: seed bags, saplings and the first Farmer's Workbench upgrade all cost it.

• From crops: every mature crop you harvest gives Essence of Life along with its produce, so a field pays for its own seed bags.
• From chests: Tier 1–3 chests in the Emerald Wilds and the Howling Sands can hold 1–6, most often in Kweebec Villages.
• Greater Essence of Life: the Farmer's Workbench packs 100 Essence of Life into 1 Greater Essence of Life and unpacks it again. Tiers 3 to 8 of the bench cost 1 to 6 Greater Essence of Life each.
• Bench upgrade: tier 2 of the Farmer's Workbench costs 50 Essence of Life, 5 Wheat, 5 Lettuce and 5 Softwood Logs.
• Fertilizer: each Fertilizer Bag takes 10.
• Trading: Rootling Merchants, found in Kweebec Villages and at the Forgotten Temple, take it as payment. They show 9 items at a time and restock every 3 days: 3 Spices, Salt or Dough cost 20, berry bushes 30 to 50, cooked dishes 15 to 75, and pie and salad recipes 2 or 3 Greater Essence of Life. Keep the essence in your main inventory when you trade, because merchants do not take it from the backpack (Backpack Guide).

Eternal Seeds

A crop grown from an Eternal seed resets to a young plant when you harvest it, so you never replant. Eternal seed bags are crafted at the Farmer's Workbench once you have collected enough memories (the numbers above; see the Memory Tracker for every reward), and they sometimes drop from harvests. Since Update 2, breaking a fully grown Eternal crop gives its seeds back, and Eternal crops no longer break from stray weapon hits.

Farming and Taming

Most taming foods are crops from this list, and most tamed adult animals produce Poop for Fertilizer Bags. See the Taming Guide for which animal wants which food.

Sources

• Hytale Patch Notes - Update 2 (January 24, 2026)
• Hytale Patch Notes - Update 4 (March 26, 2026)
• Hytale Wiki: Crops, Seeds, Wheat Seed Bag, Tilled Dirt, Watering Can, Empty Watering Can, Fertilizer Bag, Crude Hoe, Farmer's Workbench, Essence of Life, Greater Essence of Life, Rootling Merchant, Backpack, Sickle, Planter