Salem

I'm curious what's the least amount of fields I can get away with making as a hermit?

I wouldn't want to make money from them, just have enough to supply myself with crafting materials like cotton and food for increasing my humours.

Basically just wondering what a good number of fields are for that purpose without going overboard and taking up too much space.

with the recent update, I can't say for sure.
As such, my answer is assuming the old system is still in effect

I did the following early on in Roanoke:
3x4 fields for cereal (lead, salt and mercury pure)
2x4 fields for cotton (random purity... who cares)
1x4 fields for cabbage (I ignored its purity, you might not want to)
2x4 fields for pumpkins
and in my mind, I had a pretty good supply of everything. Then again, I kinda neglected my humours back then.

All in all, 32 fields.
If you're really not into purity (and the last update will slow it down drastically anyway), I guess you can get off with fewer fields, dumping some lime on them.
It's not hard to get a field to an extra 100% plenty with some lime, and that halves your field count.

In the end, you'll never have enough fields. Trust me.

Thanks for the reply Kandarim, gives me something to think about at least.

Where I'm living space is limited, so I'm trying to maximize what I can cram into the area.

Avarice wrote:Thanks for the reply Kandarim, gives me something to think about at least.

Where I'm living space is limited, so I'm trying to maximize what I can cram into the area.

just start out by cramming as much fields as you can into your compound.

The most important crops to start with is without a doubt cereal. It'll give you hay, easy humus (from excess seeds), flour (for crackers and all kind of pies for gluttony and healing).

I'd rate cabbage and pumpkin approx. equally high on the importance scale (for a NEW character, y'all) but pumpkin will leave your fields unuseable for much longer.

Cotton is only REALLY useful for fibres early on (since you won't have access to any really decent artifices anyway, so you won't need top-notch clothes), so you can probably ignore that for a while if space is a really big problem.

I'd say start with whichever seeds you can get for the lowest price.. that first field will need the most seeds until you get some of the upkeep down.. then go for your cereal on that field. Could be worth figuring out a cost/benefit understanding at the time you are ready to start planting.