Farming in Minecraft

Farming can be almost as important as mining in Minecraft. Farming will give you food to eat and also provide you with supplies you cannot get otherwise. There is basic vegetable and melon farming, but you can also farm trees, mushrooms, cacti, sugar cane and cocoa beans.

Don't forget to check out my other Instructable, How to Survive your first day in Minecraft, if you haven't played yet!

Farm Setup and Tools

Time to get started farming, there are some tools that are nice to have before you get started.

Tools

Hoe - two sticks stacked in the middle and then the 2 of the material you want to make it out of on top and in the top right square = a hoe
Fence - 6 sticks in two rows next to each other = 2 fences.
Fence Gate - 4 sticks on either side of 2 wooden planks = 1 gate
Torches are good since most plants need light to grow. From How to Survive your First Day of Minecraft 1 stick below 1 piece of coal = 4 torches.
Water - plants need water to grow, most plants do not need to be planted directly next to water to grow. You need at least 1 block of water for a 9 by 9 section of land (the water would be in the middle). You can use iron buckets to gather water or you can farm next to existing water.
Bone Meal - is created from bones (which can be obtained when you kill skeletons) and is used to accelerate the growth of plants.

Farm Setup

Clear some land. It is nice to have land not near a hill as if you are going to fence it off, the fence will keep things out unless they jump down from a hill into the fenced in area.
You will use your hoe to create farmland. Using it will make the soil appear to have rows on it.
Fences are nice to keep mobs out of your farms. Sometimes plants can be destroyed by trampling and who wants a creeper destroying all their hard work? Why use a fence instead of just blocks? Anything can jump on top of one block, but a fence is 1.5 blocks high so only spiders can jump over them (or anyone standing on a plateau or hill nearby)
You can just break a piece of fence to get in or create a gate which is handier.
When you pour water in a long hole (as I have shown) it will flow unless you continue to pour water in in different spots. The holes you see I have created each needed 5 buckets of water to make the water stop flowing.
Torches can very handily sit on top of the fence posts.

Wheat

Planting

Needs to be planted on farmland and needs water, but does not need to be right next to water to grow, but if it is planted next to water, the farmland will be hydrated and help the plant grow faster.
You can collect seeds by destroying grass. Not all grass will produce seeds, but if you just start destroying a field of grass, you will end up with quite a few.
The tips of the soil will turn brown and the rest of it more yellow when it is ready to harvest.
Wheat is used to make Hay Bails (for decoration) and wheat (to eat). It cannot be eaten as is.
Used for making Cakes and Cookies
When you harvest wheat, you will get wheat and then one or more seeds to plant more.

Facts about Wheat

Wheat is probably the most commonly farmed plant in Minecraft. It is really easy to obtain seeds and grow.
Wheat is used for breeding animals including Sheep and Cows.
The seeds used to grow wheat are used to breed Chickens.
Is found in about every village garden.

Carrots and Potatoes

Carrot

Planting

Grows on Farmland block
Unlike wheat, you plant a carrot to grow carrots (instead of seeds)
The tops of the carrots will show when ready to be harvested.

Facts about Carrots

Can be eaten raw and, actually, cannot be cooked.
Used to bread Pigs
Attach to a Fishing pole (and used in combination with saddles) to ride Pigs
Can be found in village gardens
Once in a while a zombie will drop one when killed, but it is rare
Used for breeding Pigs.
Can be combined with a fishing rod and used to ride pigs (a saddle is also necessary).

Potato

Planting

Grows on Farmland block
Planted directly in soil like carrots (no seeds)
The potatoes will start to show when it is ready to be harvested.

Facts about Potatoes

Can be found in village gardens
once in a while a zombie will drop one when killed, but it is rare
Can be eaten raw but has only 1 food point
Can be cooked in a furnace to make a Baked Potato
When harvested, there is a very small possibility you will get a poisonous potato

Pumpkins and Melons

Pumpkins

Planting

When you break a pumpkin, you get a full pumpkin. In order to plant more you need to use the crafting table to get seeds.
Needs to be planted on farmland, but does not need a farmland black for the pumpkin to appear on.
Unlike the previous plants mentioned, you plan the pumpkin and that is where the stem will grow, the pumpkin will appear in an adjacent square so you always need a space available next to it.
When you collect a pumpkin, the block below it will turn to dirt even if it had been plowed to be farmland.
After you harvest the pumpkin the stalk stays so you don''t have to replant it over and over again. It will continue to grow from that stalk. If you do break the stalk, you will get pumpkin seeds.

Facts about Pumpkins

They can be rare, but appear in many biomes.
Pumpkins always have a face. The direction of the face depends on where you are facing when you place it.
They can be made into a Jack o' Lantern by using the crafting table. Stack one pumpkin on top of one torch for 1 Jack o' Lantern.
Can be worn as helmet, but provides no protection and impairs your vision if doing 1st person perspective.
Pumpkins can be used to make Snow Golems and Iron Golems, the pumpkin has to be placed last.
Will emit light underwater.

Melons

Planting

Found in jungle, but you can also find them in chests in mines and get them by trading with villagers.
When you find a melon, break it to get melon pieces and then craft the melon pieces into seeds.
Just like the pumpkin, you plant the seed on a farmland block and this will create a stalk which will produce a melon on an adjacent square.
Just like the pumpkin, the stalk will stay after you harvest the melon and you can destroy the stalk to get seeds.

Facts about Melons

Each melon block should drop 3-7 melon slices.
Eating a melon doesn't provide much nourishment.
If you want a melon block it takes 9 melon pieces but once you break that block you have created you will only get the 3 - 7 slices as mentioned. Not really worth making unless you want it for decorative purposes.

Cactus and Sugar Cane

Cactus

Find them on sand in the dessert
They will hurt if you touch it
Can destroy anything including mobs and items
Used for garbage disposal since it can destroy items
Cook in furnace to make green dye
It is easiest to harvest it by destroying the block below it or destroying the bottom block of the cactus
Just place it to start growing it

Sugar cane

Grows on dirt, sand or grass in any biome with water
Can only be planted/grow next to water - will not grow by ice
Most commonly grows three blocks high
If you break all but the bottom it will continue to grow
You can stack Sugar Can as high as you want
It is used to make sugar (1 used in a recipe for cake and pumpkin pie) or paper (3 in a row - to books bookshelves and maps)
Does not need farmland block to grow
Can be planted underwater and creates air pockets which you can breath in

Mushroom Farming

Mushrooms

When mushroom farming, you can't have a light level greater than 12 or they won't grow - torches give off 14 so you don't want direct light on your mushrooms. Light does not matter if they are grown on a mycelium or podzol block
Do not require water to grow
Using bone meal on either a red or brown mushroom will cause a huge Mushroom
You can use a shovel on a huge mushroom to collect mushrooms

For planting them, I dug a stairs down and made sure light from the outside didn't spill in (though some light can get in). I dug about 4 squares up in the ceiling and placed a torch. I did this two times. I made the room only 2 blocks high with a dirt floor (you can't place mushrooms on stone, though I have seen them in the wild on stone).

Now wait. It takes quite a while for the mushrooms to spread.

Cocoa Bean

Cocoa Beans aren't very useful, but if you want cookies or brown dye, you will need them. (they also just look fun and can be used for decorating)

You can find cocoa pods in the jungle
Cocoa pods can only be grown on Jungle wood, but the wood doesn't have to be a tree (you can just stack blocks of jungle wood)
Just place the bean on a tree to plant it
Cocoa beans are used to make cookies and brown dye
The growing process goes from green > yellowish > redish orange

Tree

Time to plant trees! Why plant trees? It's nice to be able to control your wood supply and control the type of wood you have access to.

Common Tree Characteristics

You can punch wood to harvest it or use an ax
You can punch the leaves as well and they are very easy to destroy, but you can also use shears to destroy leaves even faster
Wood is one of the most essential materials in the game
When you destroy all the wood of a tree, the leaves will slowly disappear and drop anything they may be holding (seeds or apples in some instances)
You will always get a block of wood when destroying wood, but you won't always get something from a block of leaves
Try to clear an area to plant your trees so they have room to grow

Oak

medium colored wood
grows pretty tall
very common
chance of getting apples from the leaves

Dark Oak

darkest color of wood
harder to find than regular oak
cannot just plant one sapling to grow, requires 4 saplings (2 by 2) to plant
chance of apples from leaves

Spruce

dark colored wood
tall
can be planted with 4 saplings (2 by 2) to get a bigger tree

Birch

lightest color of wood
grows quickly
doesn't grow very tall, easy to harvest all

Acacia

unique red color
only found in savanna
instead of growing straight up, as is normal for Minecraft trees, it grows in a strange growth formation (can grow diagonally with blocks not necessarily right next to each other

Jungle

medium colored wood
grow enormous (makes it very difficult to harvest the whole tree), I have also seen them grow very small like bushes (those cover the ground in the jungle)
only found in jungles
can grow cocoa beans on them
can be grown with 4 saplings (2 by 2)
vines can grow on them and you can climb up them

Bonus: Garden Shed

I have been playing my Survival game for a while and I have accumulated so much stuff. I have about 5 double chests with various supplies separated into them. After gathering some Acacia wood, I decided to make a shed (because I like the red wood).

In my shed I kept seeds (not including things that can be eaten including pumpkins and melons), plants, natural materials (snowballs, lily pads, and grass), and tools used for farming and animals including hoes, shears and axes. The interior dimensions were 4 by 3 by (so the blocks were placed in a 6 by 5 rectangle to create the walls. The basic height is 3 blocks high not including the half spaces that were left from the slab roof.

Supplies I used: