Graveyard Keeper 2 peat: leaves and compost

Your next steps

1. 01

   Keep the 2 Leaves from every garden bed harvest.

2. 02

   Unlock Fertilizers I in the Farming tree.

3. 03

   Build a Compost Pile near the garden.

4. 04

   Compost 8 Leaves into 2 Peat.

5. 05

   Budget Peat for upgrades and buildings before spreading it on beds.

6. 06

   Use Peat on empty beds only; fertilizer cannot go on a growing crop.

Making Peat

Peat is a by-product of farming. Every time you harvest a garden bed you get 2 Leaves along with the crop and seeds. Four harvests give you 8 Leaves, and the Compost Pile turns those into 2 Peat. Fertilizers I unlocks the Compost Pile.

That ratio is the thing to understand: Peat is slow. One bed gives you half a Peat per harvest. If you have ten beds going, a full round of harvests is 20 Leaves, which is 5 Peat. That is why players who throw away their Leaves early end up stuck at Garden Upgrade I.

Field note: Queue the compost before you have all the Leaves. The pile starts on its own as soon as the eighth Leaf arrives.

Peat on a bed

Used directly, Peat gives a bed +1 Farming skill. That sounds small, but bed skill drives growth: when the bed’s skill reaches double a crop’s requirement, each tick moves the crop two steps instead of one. A base bed has skill 2, so a single Peat takes it to 3, and with Garden Upgrade I’s skill 4 plus Peat you reach 5.

Fertilizer can only go on an empty bed, a bed takes two at most, and it is permanent: it stays through every future harvest. Applying a duplicate by hand wastes it. So fertilize once, properly, and forget about it.

Everything that wants Peat

This is the list that should stop you spreading every Peat on beds right away. Several of the biggest garden projects need it in bulk.

Budgeting your Peat

Decide what you are saving for. If Garden Upgrade I is next, bank 10 Peat before using any on beds; the upgrade lifts every bed’s skill to 4 and speeds every tick, which beats a +1 on a few beds. If you are building the vineyard, twelve trellises want 36 Peat between them.

A sensible order for most players: save for Garden Upgrade I, then fertilize your wheat and carrot beds, then save for the orchard or vineyard depending on which crop you want next.

Advanced fertilizers

The stronger fertilizers are made at the Formulation Bench and combine Peat with something else: Dream Dust for Crop Boosting, growth elixirs for the Farming and Headstart lines. Farming Fertilizer III adds +5 to a bed’s skill, and Headstart II starts a crop two steps ahead. Producing Peat alone does not complete those recipes; you need the second ingredient too.

Garden Upgrade II also wants 9 Farming Fertilizer II, which means 36 Peat on top of the rich elixirs. Plan that one well ahead.

Orchard or vineyard: which Peat project first?

Both cost Peat up front, and they suit different players. The orchard is the cheap one: Orchardry is 20 green, the building is 10 Peat, and its plants ignore mastery, fertilizer and upgrades entirely. You need a seedling for each plant, from Herm at tier III or the Vegetable Stand. Bushes are ready in about seven minutes, the Apple Tree in 25, and everything regrows every 20 minutes. Berries feed straight into berry pies.

The vineyard is the bigger commitment. The Vineyard technology is 55 green, every trellis takes 3 Peat and 5 Sticks, and digging one needs Farming 6. Hops grow at Farming 7 and grapes at 12 and up. In return you get the brewing and wine chain, which the Brewery buys into.

If you are still early, the orchard first is the gentler choice: 10 Peat, no mastery fuss, and a steady supply of pie berries.

Peat in the laboratory

Peat is also an alchemy ingredient. It is one of the single-ingredient routes to Dream Dust, which needs exactly 1 green and 1 blue rune, so a Peat in the lab gives you Dream Dust without using any Blood. Study it at the Study Table first so the lab can see its runes.

That makes a small Peat reserve useful even if your garden is fully fertilized: Dream Dust goes into Crop Boosting Fertilizer, which itself needs Peat, so the two feed each other.

Getting more Leaves

More harvests means more Leaves, so the answer is more beds and faster growth. Garden Upgrade I doubles capacity to 20 beds and II takes it to 30. Wheat, the fastest crop, is a fine Leaf farm: grow it for Herm and for flour, and collect the Leaves as a bonus.

Zombie gardeners help most. A zombie on a Gardener Stand harvests on its own, and with a porter, the Leaves land in your chest without you lifting a shovel.

Common questions