Reviewed 24 October 2026 · Onyx Services
A good herb run is a short, repeatable circuit using the patches and teleports you actually have. Start with a few convenient sites, bring ultracompost and magic secateurs when available, and add more patches as their access improves. Choose seeds using their expected net return, not the selling price of one herb.
There are currently ten herb patches. You do not need all ten to begin: the first herb unlocks at 9 Farming, and each patch uses one seed. Herbs take approximately eighty minutes to grow through four growth cycles. Disease and cycle timing can change readiness, so a timer is a reminder to inspect rather than a promise of an exact harvest minute.
Prepare the first run in one bank visit
Supply | What to take | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
Herb seeds | One for each patch you intend to plant | A ten-patch shopping list is unnecessary for a four-patch route |
Spade | Carry one throughout the run | Needed for harvesting and clearing |
Seed dibber | Carry one unless barehanded planting is unlocked | Required to plant the replacement seed |
Rake | Carry it or retrieve it from a leprechaun | Weeds can return before you plant |
Ultracompost | Unnoted buckets, stored supplies or a filled compost bucket | Improves minimum yield and reduces disease |
Magic secateurs | Equip them or keep them in the inventory | The yield effect works from either location |
Transport | Teleports for your chosen sites and a way back to a bank | Running between distant patches can dominate the session |
Use weight-reducing equipment when travel is the bottleneck, or the farmer’s outfit when you prefer its Farming XP bonus. A herb sack is optional, not a prerequisite; the basic sack requires 58 Herblore to buy and use. Tool Leprechauns can note harvested herbs, so you can run efficiently without owning a sack.
Keep tools, seeds, compost and teleports together in a bank tab. Check doses and teleport availability before leaving. Lower diary rewards can have daily teleport limits, and an almost-empty talisman is not enough just because it is present in the inventory.
The repeatable patch cycle
Inspect the patch. A grown crop can be harvested; a diseased or dead crop needs a different action.
Harvest mature herbs with your magic secateurs equipped or in the inventory.
Use an herb on the nearby Tool Leprechaun to note the harvest when space becomes tight.
Clear weeds if necessary, apply ultracompost and plant one replacement seed.
Check that the new herb is planted and the compost was applied before teleporting away.
For faster harvesting, click again near the beginning of harvesting to trigger the increased rate. You can learn this without precise tick counting; repeated clicks during the initial two ticks can enable it. Once harvesting is running, pay attention to inventory space rather than continuously clicking throughout the entire patch.
Herbs do not need watering. Nearby farmers cannot be paid to protect an ordinary herb patch. Carrying a tree’s protection payment, watering can or flower seed does not make an unrelated herb patch disease-free.
Start with four convenient patches
Choose an order based on your start bank and teleport supply. A beginner circuit can use Catherby, Ardougne, the patch south of Falador and Hosidius. An efficient order is useful, but visiting the same four sites consistently matters more than copying an endgame route.
Site | Practical transport | Beginner check |
|---|---|---|
Catherby | Camelot teleport and run east; Catherby teleport if available | Use a tablet if you do not have the spell requirement |
North Ardougne | Ardougne cloak 2+; otherwise a skills necklace to the Fishing Guild area | The cloak’s monastery teleport is not its farming-patch teleport |
South Falador | Explorer’s ring 2+ cabbage teleport; otherwise Draynor-area transport and a run | Check the ring’s remaining daily use allowance |
Hosidius | Xeric’s Glade with a charged talisman, or your unlocked local transport | The Easy Kourend & Kebos Diary gives disease protection |
If the journey to one patch is currently awkward, omit it for the first run and record what unlock would help. Do not let one missing teleport stop the entire routine. Finish at a bank, note the planting time, and resume after the crops have had time to grow.
All ten patches and the important unlocks
Patch | Access or useful unlock | Disease protection |
|---|---|---|
South Falador | Convenient early patch; Explorer’s ring helps transport | Ordinary disease risk |
Catherby | Camelot or Catherby transport | Ordinary disease risk; Kandarin diary rewards can improve yield |
North Ardougne | Ardougne cloak’s farming teleport helps | Ordinary disease risk |
West of Port Phasmatys | Priest in Peril for Morytania access; Ghosts Ahoy provides the ectophial | Ordinary disease risk |
Hosidius | Access to Great Kourend and suitable transport | Disease-free after the Easy Kourend & Kebos Diary |
Troll Stronghold roof | My Arm’s Big Adventure | Disease-free after the unlock |
Weiss | Making Friends with My Arm and the Fire of Nourishment | Disease-free once prepared |
Farming Guild | 65 Farming for the intermediate wing; boosts can be used | Ordinary disease risk; applicable diary yield bonus |
Ortus Farm, near Civitas illa Fortis | Children of the Sun for Varlamore access | Disease-free after Champion rank, 16,000 Glory at the Fortis Colosseum |
Harmony Island | Elite Morytania Diary | Disease-free |
Harmony Island’s patch is currently disease-free; older descriptions can miss the September 2025 change. Disease protection at Ortus Farm is a separate Colosseum reward, not an automatic benefit of entering Varlamore. Do not assume every patch in a newly unlocked region has the same protection.
The Farming Guild can be a convenient starting or finishing bank once you have intermediate access. A skills necklace reaches the guild, but reaching the front door and entering the herb-patch wing are different level checks. Contracts and other crops can be handled during the same visit if they serve your plan.
Prepare Weiss before adding it to the circuit
After Making Friends with My Arm, build the Fire of Nourishment to use the Weiss patch. Its materials are two mahogany planks, two steel bars, 100 efh salt, 50 te salt and 150 urt salt, with a hammer, saw and tinderbox. Completing the quest without preparing the fire does not finish this access step.
Icy basalt provides convenient transport near Weiss. Stony basalt is for the Troll Stronghold, and its most convenient landing depends on the relevant diary and Agility unlocks. Check which item you withdraw; bringing the wrong basalt is a common way to waste a prepared run.
For the Troll Stronghold, a player without the later shortcut may have a longer approach through the area. Prepare that first visit with appropriate travel and emergency supplies rather than treating every route as a safe instant arrival.
Choose seeds using the crop’s full economics
The following are selected Farming milestones, not a complete herb list. Herb farming and potion-making requirements are separate: being able to grow a crop does not mean you can already make every potion that uses it.
Farming level | Herb | Useful reason to compare it |
|---|---|---|
9 | Guam | Learn the patch routine before committing expensive seeds |
32 | Ranarr | Prayer-potion ingredient; compare seed cost carefully |
38 | Toadflax | Another common market and future Herblore supply option |
44 | Irit | Useful for super attack production |
50 | Avantoe | Supports energy-related potion progression |
56 | Kwuarm | Used in super strength production |
62 | Snapdragon | Super restore ingredient with an expensive-seed risk |
65 | Huasca | Used for prayer regeneration potions |
85 | Torstol | Later Herblore uses; not automatically the best profit choice |
You can use different seeds in protected and ordinary patches. An expensive seed may be more attractive where it cannot die, while a cheaper seed may fit your risk tolerance elsewhere. Disease-free means no crop death from disease, not guaranteed profit or a fixed number of herbs.
Compare the net selling price of the output you actually sell. Grimy and clean herbs can have different prices. If you clean them yourself, include the Herblore level requirement, time and the fact that cleaning changes the product, rather than mixing one item’s input price with another item’s output quote.
Ultracompost and secateurs: different benefits
Ultracompost reduces disease chance per growth stage by 90% compared with using no compost. That is not a statement that exactly 90% of patches survive: survival depends on multiple growth stages and other applicable effects. It also raises the minimum harvest from a surviving herb patch to six, compared with five for supercompost.
Use ultracompost on disease-free patches too, because the yield benefit remains useful. A filled bottomless compost bucket is a convenient storage upgrade, but individual unnoted buckets or supplies stored with a leprechaun work for an initial route.
Magic secateurs improve the chance of additional yield beyond the minimum. The effect works while the secateurs are equipped or carried; leaving them in the bank or leprechaun storage does not help the current harvest. Do not model the bonus as a guaranteed extra herb on every patch.
At later levels, the Farming cape, certain diaries and anima effects can change yield or disease outcomes. Apply each effect only to the supported patches and actions. A diary’s XP bonus and a diary’s yield bonus are different benefits.
Calculate break-even yield and real profit
Healthy-patch break-even = round up ((seed + compost + allocated travel cost) ÷ net sale price per herb). Suppose a seed costs 20,000 GP, compost costs 500 and an herb sells for 3,000 GP net. Ignoring travel for this example, you need seven herbs to cover 20,500 GP. A surviving minimum-six patch would still lose 2,500 GP.
These are illustrative prices, not current market quotes. Repeat the calculation using completed trades for the exact seed and herb. A high herb price can be offset by an even higher seed cost.
Expected profit per seed sown = expected herbs per seed sown × net herb price − seed cost − compost − transport. Use all sown patches in the denominator, including deaths. For example, if one hundred planted patches produce 760 herbs overall, the observed yield is 7.6 per seed sown. If 95 patches survived, their average was eight herbs each, but using eight for all hundred seeds would hide the losses.
At the same illustrative prices, those hundred patches earn 2,280,000 GP from herbs and cost 2,050,000 in seeds and compost: 230,000 GP before transport. Record several runs before treating your own average as reliable; a single lucky patch is not a profit forecast.
Measure a complete run, not an isolated harvest
Start timing when you withdraw the kit and stop after the final bank visit. Include missed teleports, noting herbs and any allotments you add. Record Farming XP, herbs received and patches planted separately.
A short run’s active-time GP/hour can look impressive, but the crops take real time to regrow. Report profit per run and the number of runs you can realistically complete. Do not multiply a five-minute run by twelve and present that as an hour of continuously repeatable herb income.
If an ordinary patch is diseased, use an appropriate cure before expecting it to finish normally. A dead crop usually needs clearing and replacement; the later Resurrect Crops spell has separate requirements and a success chance, so it is not a guaranteed reversal to assume in a beginner’s spreadsheet.
Common mistakes and the next upgrade
Forgetting the spade, seed dibber or applicable barehanded unlock.
Bringing noted compost to apply directly instead of usable supplies.
Harvesting with the secateurs still in storage.
Leaving a cleared patch without compost or a new seed.
Buying ten expensive seeds before checking which sites are accessible.
Confusing an unlocked patch with a disease-protection unlock.
Counting only surviving patches when measuring average yield.
For an Ironman, keep the harvest that serves your potion and account goals. Self-grown herbs still consume seeds, compost and time, so they have an opportunity cost even when you do not sell them. Add a patch when its access improves, and keep the route short enough to repeat reliably.
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