When you begin farming in Minecraft, you will find that you need two things most of all- plants, and space. I’ve already covered where to get growable plants, so that just leaves space. I’ll also mention lighting, since that needs to be taken care of at the same time, but that won’t take nearly as long as the fields and such themselves.
In order to set up your growing space for plants, you’re going to want to know what each plant needs. Basically speaking, there are five different sets of needs a plant can have.
Trees are probably the simplest plants to care for. All a planted sapling needs is vertical space. As long as there is enough space directly upwards from where the tree is planted, it will grow. Since trees are all five to thirteen blocks tall, keeping a column of space thirteen blocks high over where a sapling is planted is necessary. Now, when a tree ‘grows’, which it has a random chance to do at regular intervals, the trunk is generated into the space, and then the game adds leaf blocks and, occasionally, branches off of that. If there is no space for these other blocks, they simply won’t appear. That does mean that if you set up your planted trees correctly, you can grow a tree up into a confined space and, depending on the height of the space and the height that the tree grows to, either spread tree bits into a different space entirely or create a ‘tube tree’, which has no branches and almost no leaf blocks.
Trees do not, however, care where they are growing. As long as they are planted in dirt, get light, and have enough vertical space overhead, trees will grow. You also have no need at all to protect them from anything, as they grow in the form of a mass of blocks and the only things that will remove blocks are creeper explosions and you (which basically amounts to ‘you’, since creepers don’t explode on their own). Harvesting trees pretty much involves chopping down the wood blocks- the leaf blocks will despawn on their own. Unless you start trimming them to use yourself (or you need apples or saplings), there’s generally no reason to worry about them.
Sugarcane is also pretty simple to take care of. If you can find sand or dirt that is next to water, just stick it in that dirt and give it some time in the light. As long as there’s a few blocks of space- usually three- the sugarcane will grow to its top height on its own. Sugarcane has been seen growing wild to four or five blocks tall, but usually it limits itself to three. Since sugarcane can be harvested by hitting it and will always grow to whichever height it reaches, harvesting it is as easy as walking straight forwards while punching at around head height. If you accidentally chop it off at the bottom, there’s really nothing to be worried about- just pick up that piece and stick it back in the sand or dirt.
Sugarcane is a little trickier than trees, though, because you’ll need to make sure that every block with sugarcane on it is next to water. This makes sugarcane a little expensive to grow in terms of space, but it’s fairly easy to work out a pattern of placement that will keep it growing for as long as you want it.
All the other forms of growable plants require tilled soil, though, and that means being careful.
