Thanks for the suggestion but I'm doing vanilla and as a real world gardener I get a chlorophyll rush by efficiently managing the crops

If you are not averse to mods I would highly recommend FarmGrid. Even a small strip can yield a good amount of flax and barley. Can't tell from the screenshot if you are already using it so apologies if so.

I had a similar experience in ocean exploring. Found an archipelago of 3 Plains islands pretty far from the mainland and with waves and tides nearly submerging any vegetation it seemed to resist any hostile spawns. But after raising the ground on one of the islands to create a flax and barley farm I surrounded the farm in a stone perimeter and parked workbenches on each wall to make sure.

my farm is dark woods and plains - built a moat around and deep enough so no spawns can get in.. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2816166366

This sliver of Plains along the shoreline goes out into the water pretty far but it gets deep fast so the 'farming' strip will be not too big overall. However, I've a portal'd base nearby and with the workbench spawn suppression will just keep growing away. I had a turnip garden out in the middle of a Meadows area will zero structures that has been around for literally months with no damage but I only go there to harvest and plant. I'll try that with some flax and barley.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2816157813

grapplehoeker: "If there are no critters there now, then there isn't a spawn point.
However, that's for regular daytime critters."

I am afraid you are mistaken. Creature spawning is rarely automatic. I have passed through a small patch of Black Forest, perhaps 120 square meters, containing only ferns, firs, and boulders that had no creatures. Less than five minutes later, a troll spawned in that patch. It was not "The Ground is Shaking..." event. I had no base structures within a several hundred meter radius.

In the Swamp I have stumbled across those high points containing boulders, two body piles, and an evil pile of bones. No skeletons or draugr were present when I got there. They did not start appearing until I attacked one of the body piles.

Creature spawning depends on RNG. The fact that no creatures are present at any given time in any given location is not an indication that there is no spawn point.

I am curious to the results of this experiment. I have a sliver of mountains in a black forest, It is just snow covered black forest where you get freezing effect. But, If I could get wolf spawns there, that would make for a great catching, taming, and breeding area. Already even have an excavated copper deposit at the edge.

Originally posted by us271934-Слава Україн:

I'll pop up a crafting bench when I'm working on the expansion, etc. but take it down when I'm just observing and/or not hanging around. I swam out far enough to drown with 132 stamina and it was still Plains but really deep. I'll expand the plot as far as I can.
Regarding the daytime spawns: I'm wondering if they may be there but are disabled when underwater. I've seen the stories of event mobs spawning in water for people that built out on islands but haven't seen anyone suggest they activated standard spawns by raising land.

I have personally raised ground around an island base out in the ocean (it was technically black forest i think) And I had mobs that were not spawning before begin to spawn (deer and greylings and such) I'm just not sure if there were regular spawns or night spawns. Never took the time to parse it out.

In the past if there were no creatures spawning before there should be no creatures spawning after you terraformed and built structures. Plants, landscaping, buildings &c. do not influence creature spawns. The only thing that influences creature spawns are most fire sources, workbenches & wards, and they are used to suppress spawning where creatures had been known to spawn prior.

That being said, I have noticed spawning & spawn rates seem to have changed since a recent patch. Now it appears that creature spawn is connected to player proximity and activity. Late last year I placed some packs of tamed wolves outside our headquarters as an early defensive measure against invasion events. I know for a fact that in most of the areas I placed them boar & deer previously had no presence, now they are spawning like crazy and in numbers that are unprecedented. The more time I spend outside and the longer I am active the more deer and boar spawn. There was a time when I would not even notice my wolf packs were outside other than hearing the howls of wolf cubs after I had fed my wolves. Now when I visit HQ I constantly hear the death cries of deer and boar outside. For a month or two after I placed the wolf packs outside their numbers did not noticeably increase. Now there are rife throughout the area as they are feeding themselves from all the deer and boar that are spawning in their locations.

I have had some Deathsquitos and regular Fulings spawn on my micro-Plains but I haven't spent a whole bunch of time there. I did expand it a bit. though.
And now I just picked up barley and flax after defeating my first Fuling village. Time to turn into Ignor the Agrarian Viking!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2816102591

Hey, I'm going to subscribe to this thread. I'm interested in the results here. Are you going to leave out Crafting Benches and the like to test it out, see what happens?

I'll pop up a crafting bench when I'm working on the expansion, etc. but take it down when I'm just observing and/or not hanging around. I swam out far enough to drown with 132 stamina and it was still Plains but really deep. I'll expand the plot as far as I can.
Regarding the daytime spawns: I'm wondering if they may be there but are disabled when underwater. I've seen the stories of event mobs spawning in water for people that built out on islands but haven't seen anyone suggest they activated standard spawns by raising land.

If there are no critters there now, then there isn't a spawn point.
However, that's for regular daytime critters.
It's nighttime you have to worry about ;)
Wait for night and wait to see if any Fuling patrols spawn... from a distance of course ;)
If nothing spawns, then it's all good and you can safely grow a very small plot of barley and/or flax.
Naturally, you'll have to wait to visit the Plains proper to get some barley and flax for seeding and you're a fair bit away from being able to do so atm ;)

Cool experiment

Definitely an interesting experiment. Give it a few days and see if squitos or anything
else spawns. I doubt plants like cloudberries will spawn but I've noticed critters may not
be present when you first get to Plains area but sometimes show up later.

maybe make it larger

Mobs will spawn at night especially if you expand the land area. Pretty sure benches will still suppress them if you have adequate coverage.