The Sims 4 How to Complete the Plant-A-Sim Scenario

There are a number of scenarios to try out in The Sims 4. With these, you have to complete a series of tasks, which earns you rewards. One of these scenarios is quite unique, as well as iconic to The Sims series, and that is the Plant-A-Sim scenario. In this scenario, your Sim is given a handful of Forbidden Fruit. Eating one of these turns your Sim into a PlantSim, but only for a few days before reverting to their original state. While your Sim is a PlantSim, they have a list of tasks to complete.

While the Plant-A-Sim scenario isn’t impossible, you can fail it if you don’t complete it in time. Some of the tasks are more time-consuming and trickier to complete than others. To make sure you don’t fail, we’ve put together this guide to help you get every task done, while leaving you with plenty of tips to give you an easier time.

If you want more gardening tips for The Sims 4, you should check out our detailed guide.

Why You Should Do This Scenario

Out of all the scenarios in The Sims 4, why should you go with this one? There are a few good reasons:

• You get to play as a PlantSim. Although this effect is temporary, it’s still a unique occult to try out. It may not be as detailed as the PlantSims from The Sims 2 Seasons or The Sims 3 University Life, but it’s something.
• Your Sim will become excellent gardeners, and produce a successful garden. Gardening is a great skill to have in The Sims 4. It’s relaxing, as well as rewarding. You can grow fresh produce for cooking, baking, and flower arranging. If you have a big garden with high quality produce, you can make great money from this, raking in thousands of Simoleons a day!
• Your Sim may also become skilled fishers, if you opt to use fish to fertilize your garden with. This is another relaxing hobby, as well as another money maker.
• If you successfully complete the scenario, every Sim in your household will gain the Super Green Thumb reward trait. Although this is available as a reward trait in the Reward Store, it is very expensive and you have to purchase it for each Sim, so this is a great advantage.

This scenario is the only time in The Sims 4 you get to be a PlantSim, so you should try it out at least once.

Tips for Completing the Scenario

Although this isn’t the hardest scenario to complete in The Sims 4, it does take up a lot of time and you can fail. To avoid this and make your time easier completing the scenario, here are a few things to consider. Note that some of these only apply if you have certain Expansion Packs installed, notably Seasons.

Have a Good Gardening Skill

The Gardening skill is key in this scenario. You’ll be developing it anyway as you work on the tasks, but it’ll be much easier if your Sim completing the scenario already has a good Gardening skill. Aim to start from Gardening skill 3 at the very least, but the higher the skill, the better.

Get Fishing

Get your Sim fishing.

• Fishing is useful when gardening because you can use fish as fertilizer. Fertilizing is critical for improving the quality of plants, which is needed for one task.
• Aim to get good quality fish. Discard fish that is poor or foul. You ideally want to use Excellent quality fish fresh from the water.
• Also, you can store fish in a fish tank to keep them fresh.

Store freshly-caught fish in a tank until you need them for fertilizing.

Live Somewhere With a Big Outdoor Space

Since your Sim will be doing a lot of gardening during this scenario, you’ll be wanting to plant lots of plants, which means you’ll be needing a lot of space. We’re not talking about a gigantic 64×64 plot of land. Even a smaller Lot will be enough. Just as long as you have a decent space to put your plants, you’ll be fine.

Set the Season to the Longest Length

Set the season to 28 days (the longest season length) if you have The Sims 4 Seasons.

• Plants can take a long time to not only grow, but reach a Perfect quality.
• It would be very annoying to put all that work in, only for the season to move on and that plant is out of action until it’s in season again.
• Consider sticking with just one season throughout the duration of the scenario.
• Ideally, aim to work in any season except winter, as in the winter, if it’s freezing, you cannot plant anything.

Choose a season to work with and extend it to the longest possible time to give your plants a good chance of thriving.

Get a Beehive

Beehives are only available with the Seasons Expansion, but if you place one of these near your plants, bees will swarm around them, helping with their quality.

Get Some Sprinklers

This is another object exclusive to Seasons. It is better to water the plants yourself, however, sprinklers do have some advantages.

• Apart from saving time with watering, as a PlantSim, you can play in the sprinkler to fill your Water Need.
• Also, if for some reason you encounter a bug where you can’t water, the sprinkler will help you out here.

Sprinklers can water multiple plants at once.

Get a Dog

If you have Cats & Dogs, consider getting a dog. Their poop makes great fertilizer for your plants. Every time your dog does their business, scoop that poop up and give it to your plants to boost their quality.

Assign the Lot Traits Great Soil and Homey

These two Lot Traits are very useful to gardening Sims.

• The Great Soil trait boosts your Sim’s garden and their quality.
• Meanwhile, the Homey trait makes learning the Gardening skill easier.

Boost your Sim’s garden and their Gardening skill with the Great Soil and Homey Lot Traits.

Have a Sim With the Loves the Outdoors Trait

Gardening can be done indoors, but it’s much easier outside. Also, since PlantSims need plenty of sunlight for their Hunger Need, they’ll be spending a lot of time outside. Having this trait will make your Sim happier.

Have Your Sim Like Gardening and Fishing

You can assign likes and dislikes to your Sim.

• If you have them like Gardening, their Fun Need will be fulfilled.
• Consider doing the same for Fishing if you plan to use fish for fertilizer.
• Make sure your Sim does not dislike Gardening or Fishing.

If prompted, agree to have your Sim like gardening.

Grow More Forbidden Fruit

Use one of the Forbidden Fruits to grow into a tree to produce more fruit.

• At the start of the scenario, your Sim gets 5 Forbidden Fruit. This is used to transform your Sim into a PlantSim, for 5 days each time.
• These fruit will eventually run out though, and if they do, you will fail the scenario.
• To avoid running out, take one of the fruit and plant and grow them so you can harvest more Forbidden Fruit, giving you extra time if you need it.

You might want to think about taking one of the Forbidden Fruit and growing more, just in case.

How the Plant-A-Sim Scenario Works

The Plant-A-Sim scenario is pretty straightforward, but here’s a basic breakdown of what to expect.

• With your chosen Sim, they receive 5 free Forbidden Fruit in their Inventory, as well as a Starter Seed Packet.
• Your Sim must eat one Forbidden Fruit to turn into a PlantSim. This is only temporary though, lasting 5 days. When time runs out, they automatically turn back into an ordinary Sim. To turn back into a PlantSim, they must eat another Forbidden Fruit. If they do not eat a Forbidden Fruit within a time limit after turning back to normal, the scenario will be declared a failure.
• Your Sim will be given a list of tasks to complete while in their PlantSim form. Once every task has been completed, the scenario will end.
• When the scenario is successfully over, every Sim in your household will receive the Super Green Thumb trait.
• After the scenario ends, you will be able to continue playing the household.

At the start of the scenario, you’ll have a reminder of what you need to do.

Scenario Tasks

Here is the full list of tasks you must do to complete the Plant-A-Sim scenario. There are 7 altogether, some easier than others:

1. Eat the “Forbidden Fruit of the PlantSim” from your Inventory. Only needs to be done once.
2. Have your PlantSim Talk to Plants. Must be done 5 times.
3. Harvest from a Perfect Quality plant. Only needs to be done once.
4. Satisfy Water Needs. Must be done 5 times.
5. Absorb solar energy from plants. Must be done 5 times.
6. Photosynthesize by absorbing sunlight. Must be done 25 times.
7. Care for Plants as a PlantSim. Must be done 99 times.

This is a summary of all the tasks. We’ll go through each of them in more detail.

All the tasks appear in the top corner of the screen.

How to Begin the Plant-A-Sim Scenario

We’ve now reached the point in this guide where we get down to business and walk you through the Plant-A-Sim scenario. Before we take a closer look at each task though, you need to actually start the scenario. Here are the steps you need to take:

1. From the main menu of The Sims 4, select Play Scenario.
2. The list of available scenarios will appear. The Plant-A-Sim scenario should be right at the bottom.
3. Select Play Now on the Plant-A-Sim Scenario.
4. You’ll be given 3 options. You can:

• Create a new household in your current save.
• Play the scenario with an existing household.
• Create a new household in a new game.

1. Go with whichever option you choose, but keep in mind what was discussed in the Tips section. If you opt to start with a new Sim, they won’t have any skill developments. Also, your Sim must be a Young Adult or older to do this scenario. That’s the only criteria.
2. If you choose a pre-made household, you’ll jump in immediately with the scenario. If you choose to do it with a new Sim, you’ll be taken into Create-A-Sim where you’ll need to create a household. At minimum you need one Young Adult or older Sim, but feel free to add extra Sims, as well as pets.
3. If creating a new household, you’ll next be prompted to move them into an available Lot. Remember that as your Sim will be gardening a lot, think about moving somewhere that has plenty of space for planting stuff.
4. Once your pre-made household has loaded or your new household has moved in, the scenario will begin!

How to Complete All the Tasks in the Plant-A-Sim Scenario

We’ll now take you through every single task you need to complete in the Plant-A-Sim scenario. Before you start, remember these key things:

• When completing the tasks, your Sim must be a PlantSim. Remember to eat the Forbidden Fruit to transform into a PlantSim. If you fail to eat it before the Wilting moodlet runs out, the whole scenario will fail. Also, the tasks won’t count as completed if you try to do them while not being a PlantSim.
• You are given 5 Forbidden Fruit to turn into a PlantSim. This in effect gives you 25 days as a PlantSim, and to complete the scenario. If you run out, you fail. Consider taking one of the Forbidden Fruit and growing it so you can get more of these fruit.

Eat the Forbidden Fruit of the PlantSim in Your Inventory

This is the first task on your list, and a very easy one.

• You must eat the Forbidden Fruit to turn into a PlantSim, which essentially kickstarts the scenario officially.
• You only have to do this once for this task, but you’ll be needing those 5 fruit to keep you going.
• To turn into a PlantSim, simply select the Forbidden Fruit and choose Eat. Your Sim will then undergo the transformation.
• The Forbidden Fruit’s effects are not permanent. They only transform your Sim for 5 days. You can keep track of this via a moodlet that counts down how long they have left. Once time runs out, they’ll turn back into a normal Sim. You need to hurry up and eat another Forbidden Fruit, as your Sim will get a new timed moodlet: Wilting! If you don’t eat a Forbidden Fruit in time, it’ll be game over regarding the scenario, so don’t forget to do this!
• Whatever you do, do not sell or delete the Forbidden Fruit! Keep them very safe at all times. Leave them in your Sim’s Inventory. The only time you need to use them is to turn your Sim into a PlantSim, or if you want to spare one to grow into a Forbidden Fruit tree and produce more, giving you more time to complete the scenario.

Have Your PlantSim Talk to Plants

This second task is very easy. You just need to talk to plants 5 times.

Your Sim can talk to any plant they own. Simply select it and choose Talk to Plant. This interaction is nice and quick, and boosts your Sim’s Social Need.

Talking to plants is quick to do and satisfies your Sim’s Social Need.

Harvest From a Perfect Quality plant

This is possibly the hardest task in the Plant-A-Sim scenario. It’s not impossible to do, but it is time-consuming. However, to avoid frustration, here’s the best way to get a plant to the highest quality:

Fertilize Your Plants

Fertilize, fertilize, fertilize! Fertilizing plants is the key to higher quality plants. Simply watering, bug spraying, and weeding isn’t enough.

• The Fertilize interaction becomes available at level 3 Gardening skill. As soon as it becomes available, use it!
• To fertilize a plant, select the plant and choose Fertilize. You’ll then be given a list of all available fertilizers in your Sim’s Inventory. These can include plants and fish. Pick one to use on your plant.
• Once a plant is fertilized, this interaction becomes unavailable for a few days (about 3 – 4). You’ll need to wait before you can fertilize it again. A plant can be fertilized as many times as you like.
• Since fertilizing can only be done every few days, choose your plant’s fertilizer wisely. Anything will effectively improve your plant’s quality, but rare or high quality plants or fish have the best results.
• There are 2 key fertilizers that work best: high quality fish – the rarer, the better. Also, if you have a dog, use their poop on your plants, as these work great for fertilizer.
• Keep fertilizing a plant until it reaches Perfect quality. This may take some time to get there, so as soon as your Sim can fertilize, use this on their plants. Focus especially on plants with the highest quality to get to this level faster.

Fertilizing is something you must do with plants if you want them to be Perfect.

Keep Evolving Plants

Although tending to gardens and fertilizing boosts a plant’s quality, it cannot reach the next level of quality without your input.

• When you see a plant sparkling, it means it’s ready to go to the next level of quality.
• To level up your plant, you need to use the Evolve interaction. 
• Evolve a plant as soon as it becomes available. If you want to get it to Perfect, you don’t want to lose any time.
• Keep an eye on plants that may have reached a higher quality than others. Focus on getting these levels up first, as it’ll be quicker.

Look out for plants that sparkle. These are ready to be evolved. Do it ASAP!

Look After Your Plants

This is fundamental. You can fertilize a plant and evolve is as much as you like, but if you forget the basics of caring for it, the plant will die and all that work will be for nothing. To avoid your plants dying off, make sure to:

• Keep plants watered. This is a must. You don’t want them drying out. Plants need watering every day, if not most days. Use the Water or Water All interactions to keep plants hydrated. If you have Seasons, use the sprinklers to help you out (this is also useful if you can’t water a plant for some reason, such as a bug or glitch).
• Remove any weeds. Weeds choking your plants are not ideal. As soon as you see these come up, get rid of them.
• Spray any bugs that appear. Bugs can be a pest to your plants. Send your Sim to spray them so they’ll leave your plant well alone.

Make sure you do these 3 things as soon as they come up. Don’t leave it too long to water your plants, weed them, or spray them. If your plant dies, there’s no reversing it!

Take good care of your plants, as they won’t care for themselves.

Harvest Your Perfect Quality Plant

Once your plant has reached Perfect quality, it’s time to harvest it. Simply select the Perfect quality plant and use Harvest Plant on it.

If for whatever reason you harvest a Perfect quality plant and the task isn’t checked off, don’t panic. Plants can be harvested once a day, growing new produce, so just wait another day and try again. Make sure you meet the following requirements:

• Your plant is definitely of Perfect quality. You can check when hovering over it with the cursor.
• Your Sim is currently a PlantSim.
• You are using the Harvest interaction.

If you meet these requirements, it should work. Plus, you only have to successfully harvest a Perfect quality plant once to complete this task.

It doesn’t hurt to have more than one Perfect quality plant, so if one harvesting from doesn’t work, you can try a different plant. Once you’ve mastered the technique of improving your plants’ quality, it should be pretty easy getting them all to Perfect level.

You can see if a plant is Perfect by hovering over it.

Satisfy Water Needs

This is one of the easier tasks in the Plant-A-Sim scenario. As a PlantSim, you have two new Needs: Water (replacing Bladder) and Hunger. This task focuses on the first unique Need of a PlantSim.

PlantSims need water to stay hydrated. This is very important to remember. Keep an eye on your Sim’s Water Need. If it reaches rock bottom, they can shrivel away and die.

To fulfil your PlantSim’s Water Need, there are several things you can do:

• Take a shower
• Take a bath 
• Drink water (from a sink or at a bar)
• Go swimming in a pool, river, lake, or the ocean
• Use a hot tub
• Play in a sprinkler

It is hard not to find ways to stay hydrated. However, it is easy to quickly become dehydrated if you’re out in the sun. Keep an eye on the meter and don’t let it get low.

To complete this task, you need to perform any water satisfying activity while your Sim is a PlantSim. You need to do this a total of 5 times to mark this task as completed.

Absorb Solar Energy From Plants

One of a PlantSim’s special abilities is to be able to absorb solar energy from harvestable plants. This in turn feeds their Hunger Need.

• To do this, just select any plant and choose Absorb Solar Energy. Your Sim’s Hunger Need will be satisfied.
• However, be aware that this will affect the plant, reducing its growth. Don’t worry though, as this is just a temporary effect and the target plant will quickly revert to its original state. It also won’t affect the plant’s quality.
• Your Sim can absorb energy from the same plant as often as they like.

This task needs to be done 5 times for it to be completed.

Photosynthesize By Absorbing Sunlight

This task requires your PlantSim to photosynthesize 25 times. But how do you do this? It’s actually very easy. 

• On a sunny day (not a partially sunny), send your Sim outdoors during the day.
• Now and again, you’ll see them glow and looking happy. This is them photosynthesizing.
• Every time they do this, it counts towards the task, once each time.

Keep your Sim outdoors for as long as possible so they can photosynthesize plenty of times. You may not be able to complete this task all in one in-game day, but it shouldn’t take that long providing the weather is kind to you.

Care for Plants as a PlantSim

This is the final task listed for you to complete for the Plant-A-Sim scenario. While it isn’t necessarily a difficult one, it’s more time-consuming than anything. While your Sim is in their PlantSim state, you need to complete care tasks for your plants. Not only that, but you need to do it a whopping 99 times! Don’t stress though. That is a big number, but it’s doable. To make sure you get this task done efficiently, focus on doing the following:

• Plant as many plants as you possibly can. Get at least a dozen plants, if not lots more. The more, the better. This gives you plenty of plants to take care of.
• Focus on these tasks: watering, fertilizing, weeding, and spraying bugs. These count towards this task.
• Harvesting plants doesn’t count towards this task.

Once you hit 99, this task is done.

Get as many plants growing as possible, then tend to needs such as watering, weeding, spraying, and fertilizing.

Completing the Plant-A-Sim Scenario

If you successfully completed all the Plant-A-Sim tasks without running out of Forbidden Fruit or letting your Sim wilt, congratulations! You’ve officially completed the scenario!

Don’t think all your hard work will go to waste. There’s just one reward for completing this scenario, but it’s a good one: every single Sim in your household receives the Super Green Thumb reward trait. This guarantees that your Sims will effortlessly be excellent gardeners, producing high quality plants.

This trait can be bought in the store, but it is pricey and the scenario gifts it to all your Sims for free!

That’s not the only reward. By the time you finish this scenario, your Sim should have a thriving (not to mention prosperous) garden, be skilled Gardeners (and possibly Fishers as well), and will have got to experience being a PlantSim!

When the scenario ends, you’ll get a pop-up message congratulating you. After this, you can continue playing the household as long as you like and keep your new rewards.

At the end of the scenario, it’ll tell you how many days it took to complete it.

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