How to make a simple cactus farm in Minecraft

Cacti are a plant block in Minecraft. Modeled after the actual plant in the real world, these spiky succulents can be found in the game’s desert and badlands biomes, where they can grow up to three blocks tall.

Cacti blocks have several uses in Minecraft. Players can smelt them for dye, use them as a source of compost and more. Because of this, Minecraft players may sometimes require a lot of cacti. One efficient way to do this is to build a cactus farm.

Requiring just a few low-cost items to build, these farms are fairly simple to make and are an excellent way for players to establish a reliable source of cacti. Not sure how to build a cactus farm in Minecraft? Here’s a quick guide to help you get started.

---

How to make a simple Minecraft cactus farm

Materials

When a Minecraft cactus grows next to another block, a part of the cactus will break and drop as an item. This farm's design uses this mechanic to its advantage in order to create a fully automatic farm. The materials needed to build this farm are all of fairly low value. They include:

• 16 sand
• 16 cacti
• Eight fence posts
• Four buckets of water
• One or two chests
• One hopper
• A building block of choice

---

Building your Cactus Farm

1. Start by clearing out an 11x11 area for your farm.
2. Find the block in the center of this area. At the center, dig three blocks down and place a chest with a hopper leading into it.
3. Build a one block tall wall around the perimeter of your 11x11 area.

Sand should be evenly spaced throughout the farm (Image via Minecraft)

1. Place your sand blocks. They should be evenly spaced throughout the farm, with one block of distance between each sand block.
2. Build two blocks up from your sand. Use these blocks to place fences in the spaces between each block of sand, then destroy these blocks.
3. Place a single cactus on top of each block of sand.

Flowing water will serve as a simple collection system for your cactus farm (Image via Minecraft)

1. Place water in each corner of your farm. The water should flow towards the center of your farm.This will serve as a simple collection system.
2. Build a two block tall wall around your farm.

An aerial image of a completed cactus farm (Image via Minecraft)

1. If you plan on adding an additional layer to your farm, simply build a ceiling on top of your current farm and repeat the steps above. Be sure to only use slabs for the ceiling.

---

Minecraft cactus farms are a simple, reliable way for players to ensure that they never run out of cactus.