is the farm just doomed to be a constant mess?

Being just a bit OCD (just a lil' bit) I usually have the whole farm cleared by spring 10. Fun fact: Weeds and debris 'spread' from other weeds and debris, so if you clear them all up you won't get any new messes to deal with until the season change (except for the occasional randomly growing patch of tall grass). This counts for non-farm maps as well, so if you clear out all the bushes, sticks and rocks in the forest, in town, in the mountains or at the train station they'll stay neat.

Also, while I'm not completely sure, I suspect you get more weeds and debris added to your farm when the season changes if there's already some there. So essentially, the neater you keep your farm the less effort it takes to keep it neat.

 

Agh, no lad, you'll have plenty o' time to tear some s*beep!* up during the winter. Also, it's all about what you prioritize in the game. You don't have to talk to the villagers, farm and/or do anything else for that matter, if you want to clean up your farm right off the bat then do so. The only restriction is your energy yes, but you can always forage a vegetable and/or a fruit or two in order to get your energy levels back up.

 

Mine is clean right now I'm not looking forward win the seasons change but it keeps the farmer busy I think with all that random stuff on the lot, but sometimes I think the farm just wants to be doomed to be that way.

 

Cleaning your farm entirely could be a bad thing- weeds are less likely to spawn, and you need them for things, most notably Scarecrows, which can be destroyed by lightning...or debris that spawns randomly because it can't spawn based off other ground debris.

 

The faster you clean your farm, the fewer resources you'll have in the end run.

I did two playthroughs so far:

The first playthrough, I only cleared what I needed, and a path to the southern exit of the farm until the end of Year 2. By that time I had such a HUGE mess of trees, that it took me nearly a week straight with an Iridium Axe to clear all of it and I had a few thousand wood after building a twice-upgraded house, deluxe barn & coop, 4 silos, stable, several bee boxes, and a bunch of other junk.

On the second playthrough, I used the trees to level foraging ASAP, and wound up exhausting all of the trees on the property (very occasionally, usually only during season change, do new ones ever spawn) and I wound up running out of wood before I even got a deluxe barn and coop, not to even mention a twice-upgraded house. I wound up having to chop wood in the forest.

So basically... if you start ASAP, you can clear the whole map (except for big stones, big logs, and stumps) during your first year... BUT... you will end up either chopping wood in the forest (which takes forever to regrow) or buying wood from Robin (which is a huge waste of money).

OR, you can let your farm grow up for the first year or so and then start clearing and you'll have plenty of wood.

 

I recommend clearing some but not all of your farm, then clear as you need either space or resources.
Decide where you'll plant and leave the rest. Also, don't clear all the grass if you plan to have animals, as the grass becomes hay and you'll need to be able to either store it in chests or in a silo.

 

If you won't be using an area of the farm for a time anyway, just cut the trees down to stumps. Stumps doesn't regrow into full trees, they don't drop seeds to spawn more trees and they take up a spot preventing other unwanted garbage from spawning on it.

 

I've tried this, laying down cobblestones and then a sprinkler, but my character still can't walk across the sprinkler. Have I perhaps misunderstood you?

 

I think mushroom trees only sprout in areas of the farm that are unkempt, so I always leave a fenced corner to grow wild. Clearing off the plot of land is definitely a long-term goal; I usually only get to it in winter of year 2.

 

He means that if you hoe a tile with a sprinkler without flooring, the Sprinkler gets uprooted.
If you hoe a tile that's got a flooring tile on it with a sprinkler, it WON'T be uprooted.

Therefore, you can use AoE Hoe and the sprinkler won't be uprooted if you accidentally hit it with your hoe, as long as you have a floor tile underneath it.

 

Thanks. That does explain it.