Turning coarse dirt into luscious green grass in Minecraft
Thursday 4th January 2024
Blog
I love playing Minecraft. It's my switch-off after a busy day.
I don't tend to play it as it 'should' be played (i.e. fighting my way to the end and defeating the Ender Dragon) but I do always play in Survival Mode. Where's the fun without a challenge, hey?
So, my main aim when playing Minecraft is to create a village. Sometimes villages become towns and on the odd rare occasion they become quite a bit bigger after weeks of modifications.
I recently started a new world and walked, swam and rowed around 40,000 blocks west and 30,000 blocks south. I had one goal in mind - find some suitably Taiga terrain close to the sea to build my house.
The pitch that I found was perfect on a small island. I tested the water for its fishing (I always get mixed results with fishing depending on where I am) and it was good. So I laid some foundations.
It wasn't until I'd built the damned house that I realised there was very little in the way of grass. Everywhere was awash with coarse dirt.
So, how on earth do I turn course dirt into luscious grass that sheep can graze on and I can hoe for cropping?
The answer was fairly simple: find some grass and place enough dirt next to it such that the neighbouring dirt converts to grass. Over a period of time your grass will start to grow and you can influence where it grows.
I found that under the first block of course dirt was regular dirt. So all I had to do was dig out the first layer of coarse dirt and place fresh dirt in its place. From there the grass started to creep along until I had it surrounding my house.
Alternatively, and for a lot less hassle, you can employ the use of a hoe to convert coarse dirt into dirt.
In the above graphic you can see that there is coarse dirt between the grass and regular dirt. Grass won't grow in its adjacent blocks!
Hoeing or replacing the coarse dirt with regular dirt will give the grass somewhere to go. With enough sunlight you will see the grass advance.
Before long you should see the grass advance. By using this technique you can ensure that grass appears where you want it.
Finally, all of this is of course avoidable if you have a shovel with the Silk Touch enchantment. Simply dig your grass up and place it where you want it, ensuring that the surrounding blocks are dirt and not coarse dirt.
This saved me a ton of hassle and I now have a healthy farm :-)