Gardening is very good for those who are playing The Sims normally and for those who are doing challenges that require your Sims to start off poor. The reasons for this are simple:

1. It provides food.
Meals cost from the fridge, unless it's a Quick Meal, but what you produce from your garden does not. It's useful to have some extra fruit and vegetables in your Sims Inventory, especially if you're a university student between classes and extra hungry!

2. It provides money.
There is not a lot of money to gain from a small garden, and maybe not from a big garden, but it is money nevertheless. Everything grown can be sold. When your skill level permits, high level fruit/veg can be cultivated in masses and sold at decent prices. It does not cost to manage your garden unless you are buying new seeds.

3. If taken care of, it is self sustaining.
Once plants start producing harvest, you gain spare seeds in the form of produce. This means that the garden can be expanded by its own fruits and dead plants can be replaced in the same manner.

4. The skill is easily picked up.
For gardening all you need to do is buy the first book. Once you've finished it, and even before, it works just like most other skills; meaning that as you use the skill you gain levels.


5. They're fun.
Especially if you have the 'Green Thumb' Trait. Gardens can be fun and interesting to maintain.

Note: make sure your garden is within a locked border, be it a greenhouse, special fences, or the entire perimeter fencing of your house. If gardens are left out in the open then they are vulnerable to being destroyed by others in the game. For example: in my challenge, This is Elliot Little, a zombie rose from the ground one night after the plants had finally germinated and destroyed all of them. The plants could not be brought back to life and I had to buy new seeds.