DrNiggle - Sorry it took so long for me to answer! I did not see the creation of this thread, shame on me.
I don't know if you are still having the problem, but as it might be relevant to other players, here is the short answer:
The reason for the crash is an incompatibility with "Citizens". Unfortunately, the creator isn't active any more and the mod is very outdated, so there is little hope for a solution.
I'd suggest you drop that mod and use one the available ones that can do the thing you want, like this one for free adjustment of values:
https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1292213400&searchtext=jfc
or this one for optimization of autonomous villager behaviours:
https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1485617049


And here is the long answer, which I think might interest you as you took a curious look at the inner workings (absolutely nothing wrong with that!):
"Citizens" changes numerous things like variable references and fixed values that are used by many villager functions. The garden, and other mods, call some of these functions (lots of them in updateWorker), causing them to crash when they encounter an invalid reference or falsely defined value.


Also, some parts of "Citizens" directly conflict with "Start Place". The game will tolerate most conflicting mods, but when two mods apply different settings to the same value (like the number and properties of the villagers generated at the start of a new game), the game will use the ones set by the mod that is lower in the mod list.

Thanks so much for the reply, I don't care how late

I was suspecting a mod conflict because I started a new game with only your mod active, and everything worked just fine. Thanks also for suggesting more compatible mods for value alterations, and please keep up the awesome work