If you love gardening in real life, we’re sure you simply adore the Gardening skill in The Sims 4. You can grow plants, fertilize them, harvest your crop, and sell fruit to add more Simoleons to your account.
You can use the fruit you harvested for various purposes. By the way, did you know you can increase the chances of your Sim having a baby girl by eating strawberries?
In order to grow really nice plants, you need to fertilize them as often as possible. But what types of fertilizers to use is not always clear.
In this guide, we’re going to focus on the best fertilizers that you can use in The Sims 4 to help your plants grow faster.
To fertilize plants, Sims 4 players need to reach level 3 of the Gardening Skill. Once that level is reached, simply click the plant and select Fertilize to apply the fertilizer.
What is the Best Fertilizer in The Sims 4?
The best fertilizer in The Sims 4 is any plant or fish worth 50 Simoleons. Using more expensive items for fertilizing your plants is actually a waste of money because they don’t yield visibly better growth results than the 50 Simoleon plant or fish.
Keep it simple, any flowers, vegetables, or fish that you can sell from your inventory for around 50 Simoleons makes for an excellent fertilizer.
The Sims 4 Fertilizer Levels
The Sims 4 got a new revamped fertilizer system that now includes only three levels:
- $10 – Not that great, it’s best not to use cheap fertilizer, wait until you get your hands on medium-quality or high-quality fertilizer.
- $20 – OK-ish, medium-strength fertilizers, you’ll start seeing visible results after a while.
- $50 and more – The best fertilizers that will give your plant an instant growth boost.
As you can see, in The Sims 4, the fertilizer quality depends on the price of the respective item.
Best Plants to Use as Fertilizers in The Sims 4
You can use plants to fertilize other plants. But finding high-quality plant-based fertilizers is not easy.
Growfruit
You can get use high-quality Growfruit to fertilize other plants. You can find Growfruit seeds in the rare seed packets. Growfruit is probably the best plant fertilizer you can use in the game.
Other plants that serve as good fertilizers include Snapdragon fruit, roses, Chrysanthemums, Bird of Paradise, Trash Fruit, Quill Fruit, and mushrooms.
By the way, you can get Bird of Paradise plants from the Romance Festival flowers.
Fungal infusion fertilizer
Fungal infusion is a plant-based fertilizer that boosts the rate at which the plant growth meter fills up in The Sims 4.
You can get it from the Outdoor Retreat in the secret area in Granite Falls.
Your need to befriend the Hermit first and ask them to share the secret recipe with you.
Your Sim then needs to gather the following ingredients to craft the Fungal infusion fertilizer recipe:
- 1 Blackberry
- 1 Dusk Spirit
- 2 False Morel
- 3 Morel Mushroom
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Using Fish as Fertilizer
The most important factor to take into consideration when using fish as fertilizer is freshness. This is because the strength of fish as fertilizer directly depends on its freshness.
However, fish that cost over $100 Simoleons will still serve as very potent fertilizer even when foul. The best strategy so to refrigerate fish in the $60-90 to preserve their freshness level.
Use common sense when deciding to use fish as fertilizer.
Extremely expensive fish such as the Sturgeon is worth selling as they can get you thousands of Simoleons.
Using Sturgeon as fertilizer is like throwing money out the window.
Fish you can use as high-strength fertilizer and is also common: Tuna, Salmon, Wolf Eel.
Fish you can use as medium-strength fertilizer and are commonly found: Tambaqui, Bass, Cichlid, Koi, Yellow Perch, Trout, and Walleye.
Fish that make for medium-strength fertilizer but is rare: Catfish, Armored Catfish, Discus, Exotic Goldfish, Tilapia, Anglerfish, Electric Eel, Batfish, Rainbowfish, Treefish.
Using Horse Manure as Fertilizer
In The Sims 4, you can use horse manure as fertilizer to boost the growth of your plants.
First, you’ll need to own a horse. Horses are available with The Sims 4: Horse Ranch expansion pack.
As your horse goes about their daily activities, they will naturally produce manure. Collect it and use it as fertilizer for your plants.
Your Sims’ equestrian lifestyle can benefit their gardening efforts in The Sims 4!
Using Super Fertilizer from Insert Farms
One of the top-notch options for fertilizing your plants in The Sims 4 is the Super Fertilizer obtained from the Eco Lifetsyle insect farms.
Place a few bug farms on your lot, populate them with insects, and collect the Super Fertilizer when it’s ready.
The Super Fertilizer is a gift that your insects give you for helping them thrive.
Using Bees as Fertilizer
You can also use bee boxes to fertilize the plants located five squares near the bee box in every direction.
If you place your bee boxes strategically, you can cover a wider area of your crops.
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Simply placing the boxes is enough, you don’t need to use special interactions with the bees.
Just make sure you keep them happy and healthy and they’ll also take care of your crops.
Use Pet Poop as Fertilizer
Did you know that you can use pet poop as fertilizer in Sims 4? The larger, the better. Just make sure you pick it up otherwise your Sim will likely step into it.
When you pick it up, the pet poop goes straight into your inventory and you can use it later as fertilizer.
The second option is to simply throw it away, but then you won’t be able to use the poop to fertilize your plants.
Pet poop is one of the best fertilizers, even better than rare fish.
Pet poop fertilizer not working in The Sims 4
However, fertilizing your plants with pet poop may not always work for all players, especially after installing a new major game update.
Sims can select the poop, and use it as fertilizer, but the poop remains in the inventory and the plant does not get fertilized.
To fix the issue where the pet poop does not work as a fertilizer, first use a different type of fertilizer, and then apply the pet poop.
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Tips for Applying Fertilizers in The Sims 4
The strategy ‘The more expensive the fertilizer, the better‘ is no longer valid. Any plant or fish worth §50 has the maximum possible effect when used as fertilizer.
Don’t apply cheap fertilizers that are worth less than 10 Simoleons. It’s best to wait until you can get your hands on high-quality, or at least medium-quality, fertilizer.
It’s quality over quantity.
Keep in mind that you’re locked out after fertilizing and you need to wait a few Sim days until you’re able to fertilize that plant again.
Here’s an additional reason to use quality fertilizer instead of cheap fertilizer that you can quickly get your hands on.
How to Make Plants Grow Faster in The Sims 4
Apply fertilizer once every three or four Sim days. If the plant is not ready to be fertilized, the option is greyed out when you select the plant.
The catch is there’s no notification when a plant is ready to be fertilized. Therefore, it’s best to follow a schedule to make sure you never miss any window of time.
Grow your plants outdoors. They grow faster outdoors than indoors.
There are five plant evolution stages: Normal, Nice, Excellent, Magnificent, and Perfect.
Strive to advance to the next level as this means your plant will produce more fruit and you’ll be able to harvest it more often.
When the Evolve option appears on the screen, this indicates your plant is ready to evolve. Hit the Evolve button as soon as possible to unlock further progress.
Plants that reached the Excellent, Magnificent, and Perfect levels serve as better fertilizers.
Happy Simming!
Eager to learn more about Sims 4? Check out these guides:
- Sims 4: How to Look After Your Cow Plant
- Meet the Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle Meat Wall
- Sims 4 Money Tree Failed to Germinate And Died
Updated in July 2023 to include information about using horse manure as fertilizer following the launch of the Horse Ranch expansion.