It would not be The Garden Path without, well, growing a garden!
We find The Garden Path is best enjoyed when you embrace a wanderer's spirit: get lost, take detours, and get to know the locals. Gardening is not the main goal of your adventure in the Garden, but if it strikes your fancy, we have a few tips on cultivation.
Seedlings
You can grow plants anywhere in the Garden as long as it’s on land and unoccupied by existing vegetation. There are various ways of obtaining seeds. Harvest them from existing wild plants or barter for seeds from merchants. (A few plants present in the game, like the chamomile and bluebells, were featured on social media in the past!)
Since it’s summer, we’ve included below a lovely garden full of plants that bloom during the summer in-game. Sunflowers, foxgloves, buttercups, and also… a lovely little birdbath as garden decoration.
Planning
If you’d prefer a more chaotic, unplanned garden, simply plop the seeds wherever you’d like to plant them. But if you have grand ambitions and want to plan out the landscape before planting and acquiring seeds, you can use popsticks and project files! Both tools allow you to browse a library of possible plants and plan in advance. You can assign projects to a resident in the Community Center, and that resident will start working on the project and planting what you planned while you go about your day.
There are a variety of ways to obtain popsticks, but the most straightforward option is to deposit debris and organic matter into the compost bin. Worm the frog will then reward you with popsticks!
Tending
Much like a real garden, plants need time to blossom. To increase the growth speed of seedlings, players can “listen” to plants and hear what fertilizer they prefer. For example, if you “hear” an oak leaf and pine needle, combine both into fertilizer in your inventory. Then give it to the plants directly. Buttercup, a merchant, also has a selection of mulch that you can check out for additional effects.
Harvesting
This is straightforward! Harvest and enjoy the fruits of your labor by picking blossoms or obtaining clippings of weeds and twigs. Flowers only need to be picked by hand.
As for other harvestables, the appropriate tool is picked when you focus on a plant, tree, or shrub - so you don’t have to worry about switching manually between equipment. Note that you may require tones, a resource, in order to obtain a “seasonal” harvestable. Tones are separated into temporary and permanent. Permanent tones can be obtained by using equipment. Hover over equipment in the menu to check what to do to generate permanent tones.
Gifts for friends <3
Harvestables can be used in a myriad of ways. Obtain seeds for the next iteration of the garden, or give them as gifts to vegetables residents that stop by the garden. You can also brew tea with certain harvestables, as well as trade the items with merchants for clothing, decorative furniture, and more.
Remember, you aren’t locked into any forced loop of gardening. Plant as much or as little as you wish, as often or as infrequently. What type of garden and what plants you grow is entirely up to you!
The Garden Path launches on Steam and Nintendo Switch on July 30! 🌻Bloom with us here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1638500/The_Garden_Path/
Until next time…
Louis, carrotcake
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