Seasons and fruit trees.

The year

A year is twelve days, with three days to each of the four seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. A day is about fifteen minutes of sun and about eight of dark. Every player in a world sees the same season.

The last day of every Autumn is the Harvest Festival. On that day the villagers pay a bonus for food, crops and dishes.

The forecast

Each day has an outlook, set by the world and the day, so the forecast is always true. Look at the Farmer's Almanac (F6) to see the next few days. The outlooks are:

Outlook	What it means for the farm
Fair	A good day for the fields.
Showers	Rain waters the open fields, so save your watering.
Drought	No rain and dry soil. Water by hand or run sprinklers. Droughts come in spells of a day or two, in Summer.
Frost	Frost stunts open fields. Crops under glass are safe. Frost comes in Winter.
Harvest Festival	The villagers pay a bonus for harvests and dishes.

Showers are commonest in Spring, and Autumn has some too. Winter brings frost on more than half of its days, and Summer is the season of droughts.

How the seasons treat crops

Every crop has its seasons. In them it grows at full speed. Out of season it grows at about three-tenths of the speed. Hardy crops such as carrot, cabbage and mint grow through winter at about half speed. Under glass a crop holds at spring for whatever grows inside. The full table is in crops and farming.

Fruit trees

Four trees grow from saplings. A sapling is planted like a seed, in tilled soil, and it needs a clear patch of about five blocks wide and five high around it. It takes about 14 minutes on watered soil to grow into a tree.

Tree	Fruits in	Fruit
Apple Tree	Autumn	Apples, for pies and cider
Cherry Tree	Spring	Cherries, with a pink crown
Peach Tree	Summer	Peaches
Lemon Tree	Winter	Lemons, when little else grows

Fruit hangs from the boughs under the crown. It takes about five minutes to ripen. Fruit that is not picked by the end of its season falls away. A picked bough bears again in the same season, a few times, and a tree of a kind with three or more of its kind nearby gives a little more. Grafting: a new sapling can be made at a Workbench from two of a tree's fruit and a little compost. See farm recipes and prices.

Crows and scarecrows

A ripe crop that nobody has picked draws crows, but only in daylight. A Scarecrow within eight blocks keeps them off. Crows first peck a crop, and if it is left a while longer they take it.

Watering

Crops grow at full speed on watered soil. Soil counts as watered when there is fresh water within four blocks, when it rains on open ground, when you water it by hand with a Watering Can, or when a Sprinkler waters it. A Sprinkler waters a five-by-five patch round it, day and night, and a Quality Sprinkler a seven-by-seven patch.

Greenhouses

A glass roof over a crop, with walls or glass on at least three of its four sides within four blocks, makes a greenhouse. Crops under glass:

• grow in any season and hold at spring,
• are safe from frost and rain,
• grow a little faster, and their harvests come out better.

A Greenhouse Kit builds a glass house with a door on level ground. It takes 60 glass, 12 wood and 4 metal.

Planning a year

• Plant the crops of the season you are in, and check the Almanac for the next day's outlook.
• Water by hand, or set up sprinklers, before a drought.
• Get the harvest in before the Harvest Festival for the best prices.
• A fruit tree only fruits in its own season, so plant it early enough for its first harvest. Apples come in Autumn, cherries in Spring.

For the crops themselves, see crops and farming. For the buildings you make to help, see farm recipes and prices.

← Back to the wiki · Last updated 25 October 2026. Mantlenaut is in alpha, so things change.