BotanyPots Mod Guide: Compact Crop Farming in Pots
BotanyPots adds compact flower pots that can grow virtually any crop, flower, mushroom, or plant in the game. Place a soil block inside, add a seed, and watch it grow without needing farmland, water, or light. With Hopper variants for full automation, BotanyPots is a must-have for efficient farming in tight spaces.
Overview
BotanyPots introduces specialized flower pots that let you grow crops, flowers, mushrooms, corals, and even Nether plants in a single compact block. Unlike vanilla farming, these pots don't require water channels, tilled soil, or specific light levels. Just place a pot, insert a soil block, drop in a seed, and the pot handles the rest.
The mod adds 34 pot variants in total: a default Botany Pot and 16 dyed versions, plus a Hopper variant of each that automatically outputs harvested items into an inventory below. Every vanilla crop is supported out of the box, and the mod includes built-in compatibility with popular mods like Botania, Mystical Agriculture, and Metal Bushes. You can browse all available recipes and items using the tabs at the top of this page.
Getting Started
- 1
Craft Your First Botany Pot
You'll need 5 Terracotta and 1 Flower Pot. Smelt Clay Balls into Bricks, craft a Flower Pot from 3 Bricks, then smelt Clay Blocks into Terracotta. Arrange the Terracotta around the Flower Pot in a U-shape on a Crafting Table. You can also use any color of Terracotta to craft a matching colored pot.
- 2
Add Soil to the Pot
Right-click the pot with a soil block. Dirt is the most versatile option since it supports the most crops. Farmland is better if you want faster growth (15% speed boost). The soil determines which crops you can plant and how quickly they grow.
- 3
Plant a Seed
With soil in the pot, right-click with any compatible seed or plant. Wheat Seeds, Carrots, Potatoes, and most vanilla crops work on Dirt. The pot will display the growing crop visually and begin counting growth ticks automatically.
- 4
Wait and Harvest
Once the crop finishes growing, the pot emits a full Redstone Comparator signal (level 15). Right-click the pot to harvest the drops. The crop resets and begins growing again immediately, so you don't need to replant. You can speed up growth by using Bone Meal on the pot, which adds 6 to 8.5 seconds of growth per use.
- 5
Removing Soil and Crops
To change what you're growing, sneak and right-click the pot. This removes the crop first, returning the seed item. Sneak and right-click again to remove the soil. Breaking the pot also drops both the soil item and seed back to you.
All 16 dyed Botany Pots function identically to the default Terracotta pot. The color is purely cosmetic, so pick whatever matches your build. Each color uses the corresponding colored Terracotta in the same 5-around-a-Flower-Pot recipe pattern.
Pot Types
Basic Botany Pot
The standard Botany Pot is a small block (12x8x12 pixels) made of clay material with a hardness of 1.25 and blast resistance of 4.2. When a crop finishes growing inside, you right-click to collect the harvest. The crop then automatically resets and starts growing again without needing to be replanted. The pot visually displays both the soil and the growing crop inside it.
Hopper Botany Pot
The Hopper Botany Pot is the automation-friendly version. When a crop finishes growing, the pot automatically pushes harvested items downward into any inventory placed directly below it (a Chest, Barrel, Hopper, or any modded storage). This makes fully AFK crop farms possible. After a short 5-tick cooldown following each growth cycle, the Hopper pot checks for available inventory space below. If it can insert items, it harvests automatically and resets the crop.
You can craft a Hopper Botany Pot in two ways: combine any existing Botany Pot with a Hopper in a shapeless recipe, or craft it directly using 5 Terracotta, a Hopper, and a Flower Pot in a shaped recipe.
Soils and Growth Speed
Every Botany Pot requires a soil block before you can plant anything. The soil you choose determines two things: which crops are compatible (based on soil categories) and how fast they grow (based on the growth modifier). The growth formula is straightforward: the crop's base growth time is multiplied by (1 minus the soil's growth modifier). A positive modifier means faster growth; a negative modifier means slower.
The mod ships with 17 built-in soils. Farmland is the fastest general-purpose soil at 15% faster growth. Grass Block, Mycelium, Podzol, Crimson Nylium, and Warped Nylium all offer a modest 5% speed boost. On the other end, Coarse Dirt is 65% slower and End Stone is 50% slower, making them poor choices for anything you're not forced to use them for.
Soil Comparison
| Farmland | Dirt | Podzol | Soul Sand | End Stone | Coarse Dirt | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Growth Speed | +15% faster | Baseline (0%) | +5% faster | -30% slower | -50% slower | -65% slower |
| Categories | dirt, farmland | dirt | dirt, grass, podzol, mushroom | soul_sand, nether | end_stone | dirt, coarse_dirt |
| Best For | Standard crops | Most crops | Crops + Mushrooms | Nether Wart | Chorus Flower | Avoid if possible |
A crop will only plant in a pot if the soil shares at least one category with the crop's required categories. Nether Wart requires a 'soul_sand' category soil (Soul Sand or Soul Soil only). Mushrooms need the 'mushroom' category (Mycelium, Podzol, Crimson Nylium, or Warped Nylium). Chorus Flowers exclusively need End Stone. If you can't plant something, you're using the wrong soil.
Special Soils
Some soils serve unique purposes. Water Bucket and Lava Bucket can be placed as soils, providing the 'water'/'fluid'/'liquid' and 'lava'/'fluid'/'liquid' categories respectively. Water is used for aquatic crops like Kelp, Seagrass, Sea Pickles, and all Coral varieties. Lava has no default crops but is available for modpack authors and datapack customization. Sand and Red Sand share categories and are interchangeable for crops like Cactus, Sugar Cane, and Bamboo (which also works on Dirt).
Soul Soil functions identically to Soul Sand (same categories, same 0% growth modifier) but without the slow-walk effect in your inventory. Crimson and Warped Nylium are the best soils for growing Nether Fungi because they share both the 'dirt' and 'mushroom' categories while offering a 5% growth boost.
Crops and Growth Times
BotanyPots ships with 57 built-in crop definitions covering all vanilla growable plants. Each crop has a base growth time measured in ticks (20 ticks = 1 second), a set of compatible soil categories, and a drop table with weighted chances. When a crop finishes growing, each entry in the drop table is rolled independently: the game checks the chance, then rolls between the minimum and maximum number of times, producing that many copies of the output item per successful roll.
Standard Food Crops
Potatoes are the fastest food crop at 900 ticks (45 seconds) on baseline Dirt, or about 38 seconds on Farmland. Wheat takes 1,000 ticks (50 seconds), Carrots take 1,100 ticks (55 seconds), and Beetroot is slower at 1,500 ticks (75 seconds). Sweet Berries and Sugar Cane are tied for the fastest growth overall at just 800 ticks (40 seconds), though Sugar Cane requires Sand. Melons and Pumpkins are the slowest food crops at 1,800 ticks (90 seconds) each, but they drop the whole block rather than seeds.
Nether and End Crops
Nether Wart grows on Soul Sand or Soul Soil at 1,600 base ticks. Keep in mind that Soul Sand has a -30% growth penalty, making the effective time 2,080 ticks (104 seconds). Soul Soil has no penalty, so it takes only 1,600 ticks (80 seconds) for the same crop. Crimson and Warped Fungi grow on Nylium or Mushroom-category soils. Twisting Vines and Weeping Vines take 2,400 ticks each. Chorus Flowers are the longest-growing crop at 2,400 ticks base, made worse by End Stone's -50% penalty for an effective 3,600 ticks (180 seconds), but they yield 1 to 12 Chorus Fruit per harvest.
Flowers, Mushrooms, and Corals
All vanilla flowers are supported as crops, growing on Dirt-category soils. Mushrooms require the 'mushroom' soil category (Mycelium, Podzol, or Nylium) and take 1,600 ticks. The mod also supports all five Coral types in their block, fan, and regular variants, growing on Water soil. This makes Botany Pots one of the few ways to renewably farm Coral in survival.
Crop Growth Times (on Baseline Dirt/Sand)
| Sugar Cane / Sweet Berries | 800 ticks (40 sec) |
| Potatoes | 900 ticks (45 sec) |
| Wheat | 1,000 ticks (50 sec) |
| Carrots | 1,100 ticks (55 sec) |
| Beetroot | 1,500 ticks (75 sec) |
| Cactus / Nether Wart / Mushrooms | 1,600 ticks (80 sec) |
| Melon / Pumpkin / Bamboo | 1,800 ticks (90 sec) |
| Chorus Flower / Twisting Vine | 2,400 ticks (120 sec) |
Fertilizers
Fertilizers accelerate the growth of crops already planted in a pot. The only built-in fertilizer is Bone Meal, which adds between 120 and 170 ticks (6 to 8.5 seconds) of growth per use. Right-click a pot that has both soil and a growing (not yet finished) crop to apply fertilizer. Each Bone Meal consumed is one application.
Botany Pots also implement the IGrowable interface, meaning vanilla Bone Meal mechanics work on them too. Using Bone Meal directly (outside the fertilizer system) on a pot with a growing crop adds between 3 and 15 seconds of random growth through the standard block growth tick. The dedicated fertilizer system is generally more efficient since it guarantees at least 6 seconds per use.
Botany Pots emit a Comparator signal of 15 when the crop inside is fully grown and ready to harvest. This means you can use a Redstone Comparator to detect when a basic pot needs harvesting, or to trigger Dispensers, Note Blocks, or other Redstone contraptions in response to crop completion.
Automation with Hopper Pots
Hopper Botany Pots are the key to fully automated farming. When a crop finishes growing, the Hopper pot waits a brief 5-tick cooldown, then checks for an inventory directly below it. If it finds one with available space, it generates the harvest loot and inserts it automatically. The crop resets and starts growing again without any player interaction.
The auto-harvest system checks each item against each slot in the inventory below, looking for valid insertion points. If the inventory is completely full and nothing can be inserted, the pot holds its harvest and tries again next tick. The pot also exposes an empty item handler on its bottom face, meaning other mods' item transport pipes can technically interact with it, though the primary design is to use a standard inventory block underneath.
A simple automated farm setup is: place a row of Chests or Barrels, put Hopper Botany Pots on top of each one, fill each pot with Farmland and a seed, then walk away. For bulk collection, chain Hoppers underneath the pots into a single large storage system.
Mod Compatibility
BotanyPots ships with extensive cross-mod support through conditional datapack recipes. If a supported mod is installed, its crops and soils are automatically registered. Built-in compatibility includes Botania (Mystical Flowers and Mushrooms on specialized grass soils), Mystical Agriculture (all essence crops), Immersive Engineering (Hemp), Thermal Cultivation, Tinkers' Construct, Metal Bushes Mod, and many more.
The mod also integrates with information display mods. JEI (Just Enough Items) shows all crop-soil combinations and their growth times. HWYLA and The One Probe display the current crop, soil, and growth progress when you look at a pot. CraftTweaker support allows modpack makers to add, remove, or modify soils, crops, and fertilizers through scripts.
Configuration
BotanyPots has a client-side configuration file with visual options. You can toggle the crop growth animation on or off, disable soil or crop rendering inside pots for performance, and turn off the particle break effects that play when a crop is harvested. The render distance for pot contents defaults to 64 blocks and can be set anywhere from 1 to 4,096 blocks. These are all client-only settings and have no effect on growth mechanics or server performance.
Datapack Customization
Every soil, crop, and fertilizer in BotanyPots is defined through the datapack recipe system, which means you can add your own without writing any code. Soil definitions specify the input item, display block, soil categories, growth modifier, and optional light level. Crop definitions specify the seed ingredient, required soil categories, growth ticks, display block, and a results array with chance-based drops. Fertilizer definitions specify the input item and a min/max tick range.
This system makes BotanyPots extremely flexible for modpack creators. You can add support for any modded crop by creating a JSON file in a datapack at data/yourmod/recipes/crops/. The soil category system allows fine-grained control over which soils work with which crops, so you can create specialized soils that only work with certain plant types.
FAQ
Why can't I plant my seed in the Botany Pot?
The soil in the pot must share at least one category with the crop. For example, Mushrooms need a 'mushroom' category soil like Mycelium or Podzol. Nether Wart needs Soul Sand or Soul Soil. Check JEI for compatible soil-crop pairings. Also make sure the pot has soil in it first; you can't plant directly into an empty pot.
Do Botany Pots need light or water to grow crops?
No. Botany Pots grow crops purely based on tick timers. They don't require light level, water, or any specific biome. You can place them in a completely dark room underground and they will grow at the same rate as they would on the surface.
What's the difference between a Hopper Pot and a regular Pot?
A regular Botany Pot requires you to right-click to harvest. A Hopper Botany Pot automatically pushes harvested items into any inventory placed directly below it (Chest, Barrel, Hopper, etc.). The Hopper variant cannot be manually harvested by clicking.
Can I use Bone Meal to speed up growth?
Yes. Bone Meal works as a fertilizer, adding 120 to 170 ticks (6 to 8.5 seconds) of growth per use. Right-click a pot with a growing crop while holding Bone Meal. It won't work if the crop has already finished growing or if there is no crop planted.
Does BotanyPots work with modded crops?
BotanyPots includes built-in datapack support for many popular mods including Botania, Mystical Agriculture, Immersive Engineering, Thermal Cultivation, and more. These activate automatically when the corresponding mod is detected. For unsupported mods, you or a modpack author can add custom crop definitions through datapacks or CraftTweaker scripts.
Do crops need to be replanted after harvesting?
No. After harvesting, the crop automatically resets and begins a new growth cycle. You only need to plant the seed once. The seed is only returned to you if you sneak-click the pot to remove the crop, or if you break the pot entirely.