A year on Doy's farm: seasons, holidays and new arrivals

What is Doy's farm?

Doy's farm is the garden inside Doydum: a small pixel world that grows from what you log. Tap the farm scene at the top of Home, or its Garden chip, and it opens full screen: a map about three phones wide and two tall, with Doy's house, the fields, the barn, Willow lake (the farm's pond) and the meadow. There's more about it on our farm page.

Your day shows up in it. Each meal you log sends Doy out with the seed pouch to plant a row in today's bed, and the crop comes from the food's name: a pilaf grows wheat, a lentil soup beans, a menemen tomatoes. Rows sprout at once, turn leafy after two hours and ripen after about five, sooner with water. Log water and Doy walks to the well with the watering can. Every 1,000 steps lays a stone on the path to the gate, and reaching your step target opens it; our steps calculator shows what a day of steps adds up to.

Nothing on the farm punishes you. A quiet day is simply a bare bed, nothing you've earned leaves, and the spring-fed lake stays full, with lilies bobbing and leaves drifting on the water all year. Think of it as your food diary, drawn. Take a walk around it here:

How do the seasons change the farm?

The farm keeps the calendar's seasons, month by month, the way they fall in the northern hemisphere. The ground changes colour, trees and plants switch to their seasonal look, and something different drifts through the air:

Rain showers come and go as well. Nothing has to be unlocked: open the farm on the first of March and spring is already there. Seasons even matter to one resident. Log through a change of season and flowers appear by Doy's door.

What happens on the farm at dusk and at night?

The light follows your phone's clock. At dusk the whole farm takes on a warm tint; at night it cools to blue and the windows of Doy's house light up. If you logged a meal in the last hour, smoke curls from the chimney. A late visit looks nothing like a midday one.

Life keeps its own hours, too. The farmhand next door (a neighbour, never you) tends the coop from six in the morning, fishes from the lake's east bank from ten to four, waits by the gate until nine in the evening and goes home for the night. When your steps reach the gate, the paddock opens and the animals trot down the road to graze in the meadow until dusk. Inside the house, Doy relaxes in the armchair, or on the sofa once it arrives, and sleeps in bed from ten at night until six.

From nine in the evening, your first visit to the farm brings a short tally of the day: rows planted, water logged and stones laid, and sometimes a hint of what will be ready by morning. If you use Reduce Motion on your iPhone, the farm shows every change at once and skips the walks and the weather.

Does the farm celebrate Halloween and Christmas?

Yes, gently. In the last week of October the farm dresses for Halloween: a jack-o'-lantern, a pumpkin scarecrow and, on those nights, a ghost floating over the willow. All through December it's Christmas, inside the house and out: a lit fir tree, a wreath and gifts. In January the decorations go, and the farm settles back into plain winter. There's nothing to do to get them; they arrive with the calendar.

The dressing shows on the farm scene at the top of Home too, so you'll notice it the day it starts.

Which animals move in, and when?

The farm starts with a hen and her two chicks in the run by the coop, so something moves from day one. Everyone else is earned by your days, never bought. Many milestones count golden days: days when your meals, water and steps all reach the day's plan (meals and water, if you haven't allowed step counting). Others count logged days, meaning any day with a meal or water logged, or a streak.

Arrivals come one at a time, and Doy tells you who just moved in. The chicks trail their mother's steps a beat behind, and the frog now and then flicks its tongue. The collection, behind the leaf button (or the barn, or the wall inside the house), shows every resident with the day it arrived, and a silhouette with a hint for those still to come, so you always know who could be next.

What are the sunflowers and the crates by the barn?

Every golden day plants a sunflower along the fence, and it stays; the farm marks the moment once with a golden seal and confetti. Out in the fields, the beds hold this week: one bed per day, each grown from that day's meals. When a week closes, it becomes a crate in the row by the barn, red when most of its days were golden. The first time you open the farm in a new week, last week's crate joins the row.

Tap a crate and the week tells its story. Each tap hops the crate and out come the week's moments: what grew most, the sunflowers, who moved in, and how the farm kept a quiet day for your streak, whether by a rain barrel, away mode or a mend. As the crates line up, the barn becomes a small archive of your weeks.

How does Doy's house get furnished?

Tap the door and you're inside Doy's one-room house. It fills up as your logged days add up:

Tap any piece you've earned to cycle through its three versions. It's the farm's one choice, and nothing is bought. Each meal you eat puts a plate on the table, and every resident gets a framed picture on the wall. The house is handy too: the table logs a meal, the bath adds water, and the mat by the mirror is the scale that opens your weigh-in. Like the farm, the house becomes a home slowly, one logged day at a time.

Can you share a postcard of your farm?

Yes. The share button at the top of the farm draws a postcard of Doy's yard: the house, Doy, the rain barrels, the season, any Halloween or Christmas dressing and the time of day. It opens your iPhone's share sheet, so you can send it to a friend or keep it. A December postcard looks nothing like a May one, which is half the fun; each is a small keepsake of that day on the farm. For the longer story of why a calorie tracker has a farm at all, read a garden instead of a red number or our guide to calorie tracking with a pet.

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