How to Build an Automatic Melon and Pumpkin Farm

Melon and pumpkin farms are the best entry point into automatic farming. The mechanism is simple, the parts are cheap, and the output feeds directly into one of the strongest emerald trades in the game.

How melons and pumpkins grow

This is different from wheat or carrots, and the difference is what makes automation easy.

You plant seeds, which grow into a stem. The stem then produces a fruit block on an adjacent square — north, south, east or west. Two consequences follow:

• The stem is permanent. Harvesting the fruit does not harm it. It simply grows another one.
• You never replant. This is the key advantage over wheat, potatoes and carrots, which must be replanted after every harvest.

The fruit needs an empty, valid block beside the stem to appear on. If all four sides are occupied, nothing grows.

The design

1. 1.Plant a row of stems on farmland, with water within four blocks so the farmland stays hydrated.
2. 2.Leave one adjacent block free for the fruit — usually a dirt or any solid block beside each stem.
3. 3.Place an observer facing the block where the fruit will appear.
4. 4.Put a piston positioned to break the fruit when the observer fires.
5. 5.Collect below with water streams or a hopper line.
6. 6.Hoppers into a chest.

When a melon or pumpkin appears, the observer detects the block change and pulses the piston, which breaks it. The drops fall into collection. The stem is untouched and grows another.

Melons versus pumpkins

• Melons break into melon slices — typically several per block. Nine slices craft back into a melon block, and a slice plus gold nuggets makes a glistering melon for Potions of Healing.
• Pumpkins drop as a whole block, which makes them easier to count and store. Pumpkins also craft into jack o'lanterns, and pumpkin seeds come from the block itself.

For raw item volume melons win. For trading and utility, pumpkins are usually the better crop.

The emerald trade

This is the main reason to build this farm. Farmer villagers buy melons and pumpkins for emeralds, and because the farm is fully automatic, the input costs you nothing but the initial build.

Set up a trading hall — our villager jobs and workstations guide explains professions and rerolling — and route the farm output into a Farmer. With a decent-sized farm this becomes a steady, hands-off emerald income, which in turn buys enchanted books, diamond gear and everything else villagers offer.

The carved pumpkin detail

Using shears on a pumpkin produces a carved pumpkin plus seeds. Carved pumpkins matter for two reasons:

• Jack o'lanterns — carved pumpkin plus torch. A good light source, and it works underwater.
• Wearing one on your head stops endermen aggroing when you look at them. This is essential in the End, and our enderman farm guide explains why it changes that build entirely.
• Snow golems and iron golems need a carved pumpkin as the head.

Note that snow golems and iron golems require the *carved* version, not a plain pumpkin. This trips people up when building an iron farm by hand.

Troubleshooting

Stems grow but no fruit. Every adjacent block is occupied. Clear a space beside the stem.

Fruit appears but the piston does not fire. The observer is not facing the fruit block, or it is detecting something else. Observers have a specific facing — check the arrow.

Farmland turning back to dirt. Water must be within four blocks horizontally. Add a water source.

Drops despawning. Extend the collection layer so it covers everywhere fruit can be broken.

It is slow. Growth is on random ticks. The only real fix is more stems — extend the row.

A good first automatic farm

If you have never built anything with redstone, this is where to start. It uses three components — observer, piston, hopper — in the simplest possible arrangement, and the result is immediately useful. Once it clicks, the sugar cane, bamboo and kelp farms are the same idea with different plants, and our redstone basics guide fills in the components themselves.