So far, every single plant I've tried to grow has yeilded me...exactly whatever I used to plant it. I put a tomato in the ground. I got a tomato. I put a wheat seed in the ground. I got a wheat seed.
It seems a little...underwhelming.
Clearly, I'm doing something wrong. How do you get an actual benefit out of farming?
How did you harvest your crops? If you picked them up using the pick axe or drill, I believe it will just give you back whatever seed you used to plant it. In order to harvest your crops, you'll need to interact with the plant (by pressing E). This will give you the result of the crop and another seed to plant again.
See the Starbound wiki for more information on farming.
If the biome is well suited to the plant, then to farm it you must:
After some time, you can interact(press E) with the plant, and this will harvest it. You will get some of the grown plant, and one or more seeds to grow more.
If your plants aren't growing, make sure they are getting sufficient light, and are warm enough. I've been on many worlds that had the plants growing wild, but they wouldn't grow if I cultivated them outdoors. I had to make sure they had sufficient light which I could only do by constructing grow rooms
