Busy Week in FarmVille: Atlantis approaches

February in FarmVille has been filled with Valentine's Day and even Anti-Valentine's Day offerings. In fact, there are still fragments of lovey dovey with this week's Leaderboard Challenges. To participate you will need to compete with your neighbors to see who can harvest the most Limited Edition Black Carnations and Broken Hearts crops. A new Wedding Planning Adventure multi-stage escapade also kicked off earlier this week and is still on stage one. To see if it's worth your while, check out all the upcoming stages and their rewards here. Hints of springtime and holidays to come are in the works as FarmVille prepares to celebrate St. Patrick's Day (the Leprechaun's Cottage is back) and the Easter season. So far, this has been a jam-packed week in FarmVille and I'll attempt to highlight some of the big events.

Gilda Returns with New Crop Challenges
Gilda made her return to FarmVille with a new feature called Gilda's Crop Challenges. This feature works similar to quests in that you have specific quest-like requirements, but FarmVille has implemented specific time frames for each stage similar to FarmVille escapades such as the Wedding Adventure Planning escapade. Each stage will need to be completed in a given time frame before it expires. Think of these new challenges as a quest escapade mash up. Gilda's Crop Challenges are all about FarmVille crops and all of the tasks feature requirements pertaining to growing and harvesting FarmVille crops. Even though the challenge will be available for eleven days only, the requirements can be completed across any of your FarmVille farms. For a complete guide with the breakdown on Gilda's Crop Challenges, click here.

Orchards & Super Orchards Changes
Just a quick note- FarmVille has made some useful changes to the Orchards and Super Orchards that will certainly be appreciated by FarmVille tree lovers. The new changes allow you to upgrade your Orchard into a Super Orchard and thus hold more trees by using free construction materials instead of the usual Farm Cash.

Enchanted Glen Wrapping Up
FarmVille's latest destination farm, the fairy world of Enchanted Glen, concludes with its final quest line, Enchanted Glen Chapter 8 quest. Check out the guide here.

FarmVille is also hosting a 40% off sale on Enchanted Glen land expansions. This has been the steepest discount to date, but it's likely you can expect greater discounts in the coming weeks.

The Enchanted Glen farm itself is not ending or going anywhere, but this will be the last of new content offered so it's up to you whether you decide to shelf it or continue to farm there. FarmVille is trading in fairies for an underwater adventure. On to the next one.

Atlantis Around the Corner
Perhaps the most exciting FarmVille news this week is Atlantis. We were flooded with a wave of unreleased news concerning FarmVille's next game expansion, the FarmVille Atlantis destination farm! It's confirmed-- Atlantis will be FarmVille's tenth destination FarmVille farm, not including mini-farms. The new farm is set in the legendary world of the buried city of Atlantis with a FarmVille touch of course. The underwater farm features the usual FarmVille offerings including new crops, trees, animals, crafting, questing and challenges. There will also be several exclusive Atlantis features, entirely unique to the Atlantis farm.

If you are working on the current FarmVille Mythology countdown, which will be available for about five more days, make sure you save the mythology themed prize rewards (Poseidon Duck etc.) in your FarmVille Gift Box or any other items of interest for your approaching Atlantis farm.

Early access to FarmVille Atlantis is projected to start on March 4, but you will have to pay Farm Cash for early arrival. Regular, free access typically begins a week or so later. For the complete scoop on the FarmVille Atlantis farm, check out the preview here.

Angela Morales created and manages FarmVille Freak, the largest FarmVille fan site, which provides news, tips and in-game updates for Zynga's Facebook farm game as it happens. She is also the co-author of FarmVille For Dummies book. Yes, it exists.