How to Plant Seeds and Grow Crops in Minecraft

Farming in Minecraft is similar to farming in real life. Unless you are using the best Minecraft mods to get a tractor, the process to get seeds in Minecraft is simple. Though, don’t confuse them with the Minecraft seeds used for world generation. The ones we will focus on here can be used to grow in-game crops, including wheat, melon, and more. But beyond these benefits, creating a farm in Minecraft is fun in general too. The in-game methods to collect each seed in Minecraft aren’t always the same. So, like proper farmers, we will go over how to get seeds in Minecraft for all types of crops and how to plant them to start building your farm.

Make and Plant Seeds in Minecraft (2022)

Leaving beans and warts out, Minecraft has a total of four types of seeds. Out of these, wheat and beetroots are the easiest to handle. Then, we have melon and pumpkin, which are harder to come across and require a bit of extra effort. We will include the seeds with similar traits into sections for your ease. So, the table below can help you find information about specific seeds.

How to Get Wheat and Beetroot Seeds in Minecraft

If you spawn in villages of Minecraft, seeds are the easiest to come across. Both beetroot and wheat seeds can be found in chests, on trading with villagers, and by natural harvesting. Naturally, you can come across wheat and beetroot crops growing in the villages too. Though, the chance of that happening is very low. There’s only a 10% chance of beetroots growing naturally on a village farm.

So, generally speaking, beetroots are a rare type of food item. That’s why you can find its seeds in the chests while exploring the Mansions, Mineshafts, and even the End City. But if we leave aside the loot, we can also harvest beetroot and wheat seeds easily. Here’s how.

1. To start, locate fully grown wheat or beetroot crops for their seeds. You can even break grass blocks to get wheat seeds. Now, we aim for fully grown crops, so we can get the seeds alongside the main products — wheat and beetroot. Breaking the crops before maturity will drop seeds but not the food item itself. Fully grown crops would look like the following screenshot:

2. Then, approach the crops and left-click on them or use the action button to break them. It’s similar to attacking an in-game mob (check out new mobs coming in Minecraft 1.19) or breaking a block. Breaking the crop will lead them to drop seeds and the main item as well. You can then easily pick them up if your character touches them.

How to Make Melon and Pumpkin Seeds in Minecraft

In terms of looting, we can find both melon and pumpkin seeds in rare chests, including the ones in dungeons, Mineshafts, and Woodland mansions. Additionally, pumpkin seeds can also be found in chests spawning in taiga villages. You can also get both these seeds by trading with wandering traders. We have written a detailed guide on how to get melon seeds in Minecraft, so check out the linked article. Moreover, the easiest way to get melon or pumpkin is by harvesting their fruit. Here’s how that works:

1. To begin, find a fully grown pumpkin or melon that you want to harvest. Breaking a half-grown plant can also sometimes give you seeds, but not the actual food item. They would look like the following screenshot.

2. Then, once you get close to them, press and hold down your left click or action button. Keep doing this until the grown fruit breaks. It’s similar to breaking any other block in the game, but you don’t need any tool to do it.

3. Once the fruit breaks, it will drop an item, which is the fruit itself in the case of pumpkin, and a melon slice in case of melon. Getting close to the dropped items will make your character pick them. You will also note that, unlike other crops, melon and pumpkin don’t leave the soil tilled. Once you harvest pumpkin or melon, the soil turns back to regular soil.

4. Next, open a crafting table or your own inventory by pressing “E” or your assigned inventory button. Here, in the crafting area, place your newly harvested crop (pumpkin or melon) in any of the cells to turn them into seeds in Minecraft. You can then place these seeds in your inventory. Clicking the seeds and then clicking on an empty cell in your inventory will move them immediately.

5. Alternatively, you can also use shears on pumpkins by right-clicking on them to harvest their seeds. This doesn’t work on any other crop. The recipe to make shears in Minecraft is shown in the screenshot below. You will need to place one iron ingot in the center cell of the first row and a second iron ingot in the first cell of the second row.

Even though harvesting different seeds can be slightly different than one another but the method to use them remains the same.

How to Use Seeds or Grow Crops in Minecraft

The obvious thing you would want to do with the obtained seeds is to sow them and grow food items in your Minecraft world. So, whether you received your seeds from chests or harvesting, you can sow or use them the same way. It stays true for all types of seed-based plants in the game. Let me show you how to grow crops in Minecraft:

1. Begin by finding grass or soil blocks. You can’t directly use these blocks to plant seeds in Minecraft, but they are the base blocks we need.

2. Next, to make these blocks useable, you will need a hoe in Minecraft. Thankfully, hoes are simple to make. All you need are two wooden sticks and two blocks of wooden planks, cobblestone, iron, or similar blocks. You can use the following recipe after making a crafting table in Minecraft. Open the crafting table and place wooden planks in the first two cells of the top row of the crafting area. Then, fill the middle cells of the remaining two rows with wooden sticks. This recipe will give you a hoe in the game.

3. Once your hoe is ready, approach the grass or soil block. Then, right-click on the blocks or use the secondary action key while equipping the hoe. The soil’s color and texture will change once you do that, suggesting that the soil has been tilled.

4. Now, with the seeds equipped, right-click on the tilled piece of block. That will immediately plant the seeds, which will grow into the main crops after some time. You can later re-harvest the seeds to use them again to plant a new round of crops in Minecraft.

Note: Do make sure there’s a water source nearby for the crops to grow. It doesn’t have to be directly connected to the soil, just close by. As it absorbs water, the tilled soil will turn dark brown in color.

Bonus: How to Grow Carrots and Potatoes in Minecraft

Covering all the basic foods in Minecraft, let’s turn our attention to carrots and potatoes in Minecraft. Even though carrots and potatoes don’t have dedicated seeds in the game, they can be grown and harvested as easily. But, a major difference is that if we try breaking a half-grown carrot or potato, they drop nothing. With that out of the way, learn how to grow potatoes and carrots.

1. Most commonly found in village farms, you should start by finding fully grown potato and carrot crops. You can also find them in chests or by trading with villagers.

2. Once you find the crops, approach the crops and left-click or use the action button to break them. It’s similar to attacking any in-game mob or block. Breaking the crop will make the carrot and potato drop like other in-game items. You can get close to them, and the character will pick them up automatically.

4. Now, to make them work as a seed, all you need to do is plant them. Similar to sowing seeds, find a harvestable ground and right-click on it to plant them. Then, after some time, the carrots and potatoes will turn into full-grown crops that you can harvest and use as seeds once again. We also have a dedicated guide on how to get carrots and plant seeds in Minecraft, so check it out via the linked article.

Easiest Way to Grow Crops in Minecraft

The methods to obtain and use seeds work the same way for Minecraft Java and Bedrock editions. They will also work on any other device that supports Minecraft, like Minecraft on Chromebook or Minecraft PE on Android and iOS. Unlike the real world, seeds work the same way in all Minecraft biomes as long as you use tilled soil or grass blocks. And if you feel stuck at any step of the process, feel free to reach out with your query in the comments section below, and we will help you out. Now, use your knowledge to find seeds in Minecraft and enjoy some farming!