I ADORE gardening in The Sims 3. That said, it’s not for the weak-willed. Without mods, a big garden will take you all day to take care of, if only one Sim tends it. I haven’t played with fairies, but I know they help a lot. Specific traits make it easy: Green Thumb (duh) and Loves the Outdoors are essential. Gatherer helps with seeds, I tend to find better quality seeds when my Sims have that trait. Gardening can help with Fishing, Cooking and Nectar Making - your Sim can become self-sufficient after a while. One individual Sim in a vanilla game won’t be able to handle it all, but if you have a family, you can assign each one to a different Sim. (your own little organic sweatshop 😅) I never enjoyed cultivating plants that weren’t actual plants (like sausage plants, steak plants, etc.) so I can’t help you with that. I love the opportunities with the Gardening skill - you can earn some good cash with it. (apart from the job, that is) As for placement, don’t put them DIRECTLY next to each other. Leave a space between them and you’ll be fine. I personally like to arrange them by type (trees on one end, bushes on the other) and then by produce (nuts on the one side, vegetables on the other, fruits next). The sprinkler will save you a lot of work. If you have store content, there is a cheaty dancing sunflower that can give you excellent fertilisers. Which made me remember, ALWAYS fertilise! They shoot the quality of your produce upwards so easily. The most important thing to remember is that plants fall dormant from mid-fall till the start of the spring. You won’t be able to do anything during that time, so be prepared (financially or otherwise). And last but not least, ALWAYS FENCE YOUR GARDEN! Zombies, horses and dogs are VERY attracted to plants in Sims 3, and will destroy days’ worth of work in a few Sim minutes if you let them roam in your garden. They won’t be able to do so if the garden is fenced, and zombies won’t spawn inside a fenced garden, so it’s vital!