1) once you build the gardener's house, you can grow some flowers (those that produce goods are fine, but those near brewer/stonemason's will pause the artisan in his work and you won't get any more output). I bypassed that by simply not planting those particular flowers 2) i didn't encounter a markets problem until the second world, level 7 or 8 At that point, i found he wouldn't exchange anything, and while you can just about survive the dearth of food, you can't get enough stone to complete before time runs out.