Hoe

In-game description

A flat stone blade lashed across a haft. click or F breaks the ground into a tilled bed; at a tilled bed it sows the chosen seed. Sometimes the soil gives up a seed.SHOWN ON ITS CARD

Using it

• Till: aim at open ground and press click or F. Small plants and grass in the bed are cleared. The bed you aim at has a 20% chance to turn up a seed when it is first broken, or else a 10% chance of a Stone (see Seeds).
• Sow: aim at a tilled, empty bed while you carry seeds and press click or F. Choose the seed on the SEEDS page in K, or turn through your seeds with the mouse wheel or the pad's d-pad.
• Clear: click or F at a dead crop breaks it up and leaves the bed tilled.
• Spirit Soil: right-click or R opens the SOIL window. A stone hoe holds 1 spirit at up to LIGHT; bronze holds 2 at up to RICH; steel holds 2 at up to DEEP.

If the bed you aim at is tilled and empty and you have seeds, the stroke sows; otherwise it tills. A marker shows each bed in the patch before you strike.

Stats by metal

• AREA: how many beds it works at once, across your aim, then along it. A Farmer's Raincoat adds a ring of beds all round.
• SEEDS: the chance the bed you aim at turns up a seed when it is first broken. Other new beds in the patch get half the spirits' bonus and no base chance.
• GROWTH: how much faster crops grow in beds it tills, for 3 days (from spirits).
• SOIL: how much finer crops come up from beds it tills (from spirits).
• REACH: how many beds away you can aim it.

Spirits and traits change these numbers.

Spirits in the hoe

Spirited at the Spiriting Table, the hoe's spirits are all about the soil. A bed tilled by a spirited hoe keeps a boon for 3 days, shown as motes of the boon's colour in the soil.

• Fire: beds grow faster for 3 days (15% to 60%), seeds start partly grown (10% to nearly half), beds stay warm so frost can't touch them, faster work, Fire spirits from each bed.
• Water: beds start watered, beds hold their water longer, some seeds you sow are not used up (1 in 6 up to 1 in 2), crops in the beds get back health, Water spirits from each bed.
• Earth: finer crops, beds fed as Bone Meal feeds them (2 to 3 days), more seeds turned up, rarer seeds, stone and ore turned up, bumper crops (1 in 8, or 1 in 4), now and then a Spirit Gem.
• Wind: a wider and deeper patch (up to two beds wider each side and two rows deeper), longer reach (up to 3 beds), faster work (up to twice as fast), more seeds turned up, Wind spirits from each bed.

Pairings

Traits

Traits on garden tools have garden names (a Sharp trait is Bountiful on a hoe). On the hoe, traits can raise the SEEDS chance, change its SPEED, or add to its REACH. See Traits.

Making it

Made at the Crafting Table, on its TOOLS page. Each metal opens as you collect Jewels: see Metal Tiers.