Dwarf Fortress - Addiction in ASCII - Page 9

Well basically, you need to get water on cave floor to make a layer of dirt. To do that, I generally make two idential rooms, 5x5 size, one on top of the other. Once both rooms are mined out, channel (d > h) through the 3x3 center tiles in the top room, so that there's a hole through the floor in the top room, but still a walkable path around the hole.

Then, use 'i' to create a zone in the now-channelled hole in the top floor. With the zone created, click 'p' to assign it to "pit/pond", then capital 'P' to enter the "pit/pond" submenu. Here, click 'f', which assigns the pit you've just made to be filled with water.

What your dwarves now will do, is grab a bucket and toss water from a nearby water source (river, lake, whatever's available) down the hole from the walkways in the top floor, down into the bottom floor. When water hits a stone tile, it will leave water as well as a layer of dirt. Once a nice enough area of the bottom floor is covered either with water or just dirt from evaporated water tiles (use 'k' to see what a tile consists out of), go up to the top floor again, click 'i' to go to the zone selection screen and remove the pit zone, so that the dwarves stop tossing water down.

Now that you've got underground dirt, you need to build farming zones. To do this, click b > p, and build the dirt tiles. After you've clicked b > p but before you've selected what tile to build, you can use 'u' and 'h' to enlarge the building zone (and 'k' and 'm' to shrink, if you want that) - what this does is that the entire field will act as one zone, meaning the entire area will follow the same planting order.

Once a planter has prepared the tiles, you can assign what type of plant you can grow. Plump Helmet is the all-round plant you want to start with, as it can be eaten raw, be cooked and also be brewed into dwarven wine. I usually assign at least 5 tiles to grow nothing but Plump Helmets all four seasons.

Oh, by the way - you need a dwarf with Plant Growing task assigned. It should be under the Farming menu in the task preference screen.

So, as a summary:

1. Carve two identical 5x5 rooms, one above the other.
2. Channel 3x3 through the center of the top room.
3. Assign a pit zone with 'i', 'p' > 'P' > 'f'
4. Remove pit zone designation when enough of the bottom floor is covered in dirt
5. Use b > p to assign farm area
6. Assign plant growth for a. spring, b. summer, c. autumn and d. winter in each farming tile.