How to Grow Seeds in Minecraft PE

Last Updated: June 22, 2020 References

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.

Part 1

Part 1 of 2:

Growing Seeds

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]
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- 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]
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- Find melons growing in jungles and villages. Craft the melon to make melon slices, then craft the slices to make seeds. ^{[5]
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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]
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- Snow
- Frost-covered leaves
- Steep mountainous terrain
- Sand (except for beaches)
- Yellowish grass
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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
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]
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Research source} 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
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.
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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.

Part 2

Part 2 of 2:

Improving Your Farm

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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
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]
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3
Fence in your crops. Wandering mobs can trample your crops. Build a fence around your farm to protect it.
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]
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- Oddly enough, farmland is transparent. Dig beneath your farm (careful to avoid the water) and place torches there to make your farm glow.^{[11]
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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]
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Research source} 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.

Community Q&A

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.

Warnings

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

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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.

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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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