I noticed that my Stardew Valley face is at the top of these boards with tons of questions. I figure either I'm a dunce or the boards aren't used very much anymore. Regardless, I thought I would reduce the number of posts from ME by making one with the questions I have today while playing: 1) In watching some youtubes, it seems that coffee beans and strawberries are recommended for crops in spring, blueberries, red cabbage and starfruit in summer and cranberries in fall. Is this strictly for planting/selling? Are they meaning that other crops if you only plant/sell don't make as much and don't take into consideration jams/jellies and wines/beer? 2) for money, I seem to be making A LOT on aged goat cheese. In fact, I was playing a little bit on Wednesday evening (normally just a weekend warrior) and a new baby goat was born in my barn. I was SUPER excited. I only bought one goat and two have been gifted to me this way. I aged my yellow star goat cheese to purple and made over 12,000gp on 11 pieces. My basement is now full of aging cheese. I went from stressing out about upgrading my house to the fullest and only having 10k left to having 108k in a very short period of time. 3) Because of #2 above, does it really matter what I plant since I seem to be making so much on the cheese? I suppose this goes to whatever a person's goal is in SDV. Mine is to create a fully working farm that eventually looks nice. Right now, it's all clustered around the farmhouse to make it fast to do what I need to do and get back to my tasks for the day. I'm testing out making jellies/jams, wines with just one cask of each, seeing what sells for the most. 4) I have ONE FISH to find to complete the community center. It's the allusive catfish. Fortunately it's spring and rains a lot so I'm a fishing fool this weekend. I've purposely not watched any youtube videos on this as I want to be surprised at what happens. I didn't have anyone else to tell about this so I'm sharing with you guys. 5) Oh, and I got the rusty key from Gunther this week as well. I'll be checking out those sewers as soon as the community center is done. I'll just keep adding questions to this as they pop up and thanks to those who still play and are willing to help us newbies.
Just not used as much as they used to be. The game is over three years old now I'd never recommend planting masses of coffee as the best moneymaker, unless you're specifically doing a themed coffee farm. ShneekeyTheLost already crunched the numbers on this As for all the other stuff, again, Shneekey crunched the numbers already It depends if you are making artisan products, but if you are, then Strawberries are good for spring, as long as you can carry over seeds from the previous year and plant them on day 1. If you have to wait until the Egg Festival then you are much better off planting Rhubarb from Oasis For Summer, it depends on what you're doing. Hops are technically the most valuable for a single plot, but only a tiny fraction ahead of Starfruit, which is a much more practical crop. Hops requires daily harvesting; if you miss a single harvest then you were better off with starfruit. Also, hops can't be planted as densely because of trellis limitations, so a quality or iridium sprinkler will earn more when fully surrounded by starfruit than when only partially surrounded by hops. Finally, turning all your hops into pale ale in a timely fashion requires twice as many kegs as it takes to turn all your starfruit into wine. For pure profit, Blueberries are a long way behind both For Fall, cranberries are technically more valuable, but again they're a lot more effort, and require six times as many kegs as pumpkins, for only a few percent increase in profit, so I think most people plant pumpkins as a cash crop If you are still selling raw, then it'll look slightly different. You might have to calculate for yourself what is best, depending on your profession choices and whether you're using fertilisers or speed gro. Making "so much on the cheese" is relative. If you have enough money to do what you want in the game then no, it doesn't matter what you plant. On the other hand, if you want to buy a 10,000,000g gold clock before the end of year 1, then goat cheese isn't going to get you there. Only you can really decide what is enough. Good luck. Catfish is the third most difficult bundle fish to reel in, after pufferfish and sturgeon You don't need to wait for CC to be complete, you can check it out now if you want.
It's the latter, don't worry. I'm enjoying you making new posts here! Except for coffee, those are mostly the better money crops, yes. (The coffee is presumably because you can make, well, coffee. IIRC it's not a particularly good money maker.) Off the top of my head, I'd add hops, pumpkins, and maybe cauliflower or something to that list. The price of selling jams/jellies and wine is based on the base price of the crop (the price you would get for selling an unprocessed regular-quality crop, ignoring the Tiller perk). So if something makes more money when selling raw, it usually also makes more money when selling processed. (Specifically, jams and pickles are 2*base price + 50g, wine (from any fruit in a keg) is 3*base price, and juice (from any vegetable in a keg) is 2.25*base price.) The exceptions are beer and pale ale, which increase the value of wheat/hops by much more than that. Hops, specifically, are one of the best money makers in the game if processed. The other thing to consider is the amount of infrastructure required - blueberries, for example, are technically more profit than melons, but you need so many more jars to process them that it's arguably not worth it. (Anyways, in year 2, red cabbage, or starfruit if you have the desert open, is better for money. Hops, as mentioned above, are also amazing money makers but have the same problem of needing lots of kegs to process.) EDIT: Same comparison applies with hops vs starfruit, as @One More Day points out You can make significantly more than that by planting and processing the right stuff - just one starfruit wine is 2250, as much as three iridium quality goat cheeses. Granted, that's by far the best selling single crop in the game, but you can also plant a lot more than 11 crops. On the other hand, after a while you reach the point where money isn't really an issue. Like you said, it's a matter of priorities. (For comparison, aged goat cheese is 750, strawberry wine is 360, cauliflower pickles are 400, rhubarb wine is 660, melon wine is 750, red cabbage juice is 585, and pumpkin juice is 720. Of course you also have to keep in mind how long they take to grow.) Good luck! EDIT: Oh look, ninja'd by @One More Day saying all the same stuff but better and with less words.
Thank you all for the excellent advice! I will take it all into consideration and plop it into my plans. I am mainly interested in artisan goods and chose that branch when my farming got to be at 10. That's why I was so jazzed about the cheese. I've just started collecting wines to put in my aging barrels when they empty out of cheese soon. There are so many factors in all this. For instance, I bought my first goat but the second and third were born and therefore free. So all the cheese that comes from their milk is 100% profit. Note: probably 10 minutes after I posted this, I caught a catfish in the lake on my farm. Completed the community center and made the entire town happy! Took a peek in the sewers and will go back there later. Did some moving around of my buildings and just got back from my first trip to the Oasis. Starfruits are growing in my greenhouse as I type I won't be buying that clock for a while but that's ok. This is a no rush kind of thing (I rush enough in my RL). Having a good time on Monroe Farm and am enjoying my forth spring!
Thank you! Speaking of coffee, oh my goodness. Have I regretted planting eight plants in the spring. I have so many coffee beans. And it takes forever to process them into coffee. I'll be happy when winter comes and I can hack down those plants. While I was waiting for a response here, I've been looking at examples of Riverland farms trying to figure out the best way to arrange mine since I figured I'd be doing the stall and horse. I finally got a pretty good setup for my coop and barn so that the animals always have fresh grass by blocking off one area to let grass grow while they munch on another area. I haven't outgrown my "extra room" in the largest house for doing my kegs but it's getting close. So I suppose I should incorporate that building as well. Oh and I finally grew enough hay to fill two silos by the first of summer so I think I can spare some of that hay land for buildings. Thinking outloud, I just hate the idea of things being spread all over the farm. Some of the examples I'm seeing would take all day just to gather everything. *goes back to planning*
*laughs* @BentFX I'm sure that will be the case with my new pony "Wildfire" who will be arriving in a couple of days. New question: After the first year, is there any reason to attend the dance of the moonlight jellies? I see no benefit as far as relationships, things you can buy, etc.
The horse does have the issue that when moving north/south it takes up two spaces, so there's a few paths it doesn't fit in. But the faster movement speed is definitely nice. Not really. It's a pretty cutscene, I guess.
You lose it behind trees? I lose him everywhere. Behind the barn. In front of the scarecrow. Next to the stone fence. In the orchard. <Right next to my farmer>.. yeah, I might have an issue with that. lol. I've always had more trouble with catfish than any other fish. I suppose that is a function though of the difference higher fishing rate and the better rod have on 'calming' fish down. Day 3 with a level 2 rod and fishing level of 3 boosted to 4 doesn't catch many (if any at all) catfish. While by the time I'm fishing for sturgeon or puffer fish in the summer I've got fishing level 8 or so probably. Once I catch the catfish I need for the cc bundle I don't usually fish for them anymore. I don't need the river fish or wood skip, so there is no point to fishing anywhere besides the mountain lake if fishing for money? back to OP. The horse is a great buy in my opinion. Even at the high cost in money and hardwood I've enjoyed buying it in spring 1 many times. Especially in my style where I like to chase villagers around to gift them things. Or I have to return home because I forgot things. The added mobility of the horse just keeps paying and paying and paying. I normally wait until Summer or Fall of year one, Spring is for me a super hard push that I can't have both sprinklers and the horse yet, so I choose the sprinklers. (Level 80 in the mines for gold.). Once I have that and the fields planted without watering needs, I push for the stables and horse.
All good thoughts here. As for money, it wasn't a problem as I'm playing quite slow. I'm on Summer year 4 and have over 300k in the bank. I did get my horse. I find I need to pick and choose when I use it. Around the farm is not so good with all the fences and gates to open/close. I did use him one day to run to town for something but came home a fast way (cart?). Ended up leaving the poor guy somewhere. I was pretty sure he would end up back at the stable over night - and he did. Yes sprinklers. Absolute must. I can make the second best ones right now. Works fine for me. Fishing. Ug. Yes, I finally got that catfish for the CC. Then a few months later, got a random quest for one. Nope. Not gonna happen. I don't fish anymore. I don't need the money, I'm not cooking yet so don't need any for dishes. Eventually I might pick it back up but I'm way too busy. I'm hoping to push to level 100 of the mine this winter (that's the only time I go). So the first question of the day (I'm on vacation this next entire week so expect a bunch from me): it's fall. My two silos are full and I have enough grass to cut down to fill another one if I needed it to feed the animals through the winter, which I don't. If I don't cut the hay, will grass grow quickly there in the spring? I currently have three fields that are used for my animals to munch on. I have fences to separate the fields and alternate them so that they don't wipe them out completely, giving each a chance to grow. This has worked our fairly well this year. So should I get another silo to make sure I can keep them inside in the spring a few days to let the fields regrow? Or is there a fast way to make sure those fields fill up? This year, I had to get grass starter to get them going and had to buy hay to keep the animals inside a while longer because I ran out the last few days. Also, I have some fields I use exclusively for growing hay. They are completely full right now. Should I leave it through the winter? Or cut it down?
If you have no need of the hay, there is no need to spend the time to cut it down. If your silos are already full, there's no benefit to cutting it down, unless you want to put down a chest and start filling it with hay from your silos to give yourself an extra buffer reserve. It's probably unnecessary, but the option is there.
As ShneekyTheLost says, there is no need to cut it down if you can't store it. But as far as I am aware the switch to winter does kill all grass/hay so there is no "leaving it through the winter". I got grass/hay to grow during winter from grass starters bought and planted in winter. I did not get any grass carryover from fall into winter. If you want it, either build the extra silo and store it up. or build another smaller barn/coop to pull the hay into a bin. I recommend the barn/coop option since it will give you a place to store more kegs and bins and your hay storage will be infinite instead of a silo which will only add 240 more slots. -But your farm layout and style will dictate more that that I suspect. I only ever make the 2nd level sprinklers. Frankly there are nearly efficient enough to not bother with the others. And, there is a better way in my opinion to acquire the iridium sprinklers than making them. I use that when I am able. But I'm not going to <spoiler> that.
*winks* @UnexpectedParole I think I know what you are talking about on the fancy sprinklers. Not there yet but read about them. Thank you both for your suggestions! I will give it more thought. I just found out after nearly two months of playing that the fridge has storage. Do any of you use that and if so what for? Just curious. I have been gifted a bunch of food by my husband Alex and a good bit from Evelyn who must really appreciate the fact I take good care of her grandson Alex. I was thinking of storing all that in there. I've been saving it all for my trips to the mine. I figure eventually, I'll need to start making some stuff as it's sure getting harder below level 80 (I hit 86 so far I think).
I do have one use for the Iridium Sprinklers. I can put six of them in my Greenhouse and save more space for more crops than if I used Quality Sprinklers. Other than that, you probably build your farm plot back when you only had Quality Sprinklers, and adjusting the field size, and everything else around it, is probably more trouble than it is worth in most cases, so it just stays as it is through infrastructure inertia. Anything stored in the fridge can be accessed by the kitchen for purposes of food preparation, which makes it useful for storing things you want to make food from. For example, if you enjoy making Pepper Poppers and eating them for the speed boost (which, by the way, STACKS with the Coffee speed boost, but NOT any of the other food speed boosts), you can store the peppers and the cheese in the fridge so it doesn't take up space in a chest somewhere else or in your inventory and you won't have to worry about accidentally losing track of which chest you put it in. As far as a good food for mining, I strongly suggest Cheese as an excellent health and endurance replenishing ambrosia. Large Milk automatically turns into Gold Star Cheese, which provides 225 Energy and 101 Health. Even with a base Barn you can have four cows producing milk daily which you can then process and have effectively four cheese per day provided to you. Any cheese you don't eat can get sold or gifted. Also, in general, combat is a sucker's bet down in the mines, so combat avoidance is a skill you may wish to acquire. of course, that gets harder to do after level 80, as you have the shadow shamans cursing you and the fireball spitters as well, and those helmet-heads are pretty fast and highly resistant to knockback. If you haven't invested in a Steel Pickaxe yet, I suggest doing so.
If you want to rearrange your farm around junimo huts after getting access to them, that may be a good time to rearrange it for iridium sprinklers as well. Other than that, yeah, unless you're doing giant crops it's not that big of a deal. Salads from the saloon are also good reasonably cheap energy and fairly convenient to get. You'll get a better weapon on floor 90, which should help quite a bit. On the other hand, killing a monster gives a 15% chance of a ladder, which is significantly higher than breaking rocks unless there are very few rocks on the floor. Also, killing all the monsters on the floor gives a 4% boost to the chance of a ladder from a rock. So if you can kill a monster reasonably quickly (probably not the case right now, but it may be the case once you get that weapon on 90), it's probably worth killing. (Those fire-spitters, which are called Squid Kids for some reason unknown to me, only have 1 HP, so you should always kill them. Plus they can drop bombs, mega bombs, and gold bars.) Note that a ladder can only appear over bare rock, so try not to kill enemies over wooden platforms or rocks, or while they're overlapping your hitbox.
So I came back to ask another question and look at all this great advice! I currently have a regular chest in my kitchen for food ingredients. At least ones I assume will be ingredients. I have a ton of recipes but haven't made much food yet due to not much need. But as mentioned, that's starting to change. I hit level 89 in the mine and simply ran out of food to continue. Just finished up with the chores and heading to the mine. I WILL get to level 90 today! *puts on running shoes* I'm going to try using a bomb for the first time. *gulp* I am the cheese QUEEN. I have two cows and four goats. 2/3 of my aging casks are currently full of goat cheese and I have a chest full waiting to be aged. I have never noticed the speed boost it gives. I'll have to check! Question: I have about 8 or 9 mushroom trees that sprang up on a remote part of the farm. I let them go to seed which is why there are so many (and it looks like many more coming). Most of the time, I get regular old mushrooms from them (got a couple hundred I have no idea what to do with). One newish tree tends to almost always give me red mushrooms. TODAY, I got EIGHT purple mushrooms! Is it because it's raining? I figured it could be due to luck. If that's the case, I need to run out and buy a lottery ticket! Another question: how long will ancient fruit plants give fruit? I have some in my greenhouse and they haven't stopped producing for quite a while - 2 months maybe.
Cheese itself doesn't give a speed boost, but if you get Shane to three hearts he'll give you the recipe for Pepper Poppers, which take a hot pepper + a cheese and give a speed boost lasting almost half the day. Hot pepper is super cheap and easy to get lots of in summer. Common mushrooms are pretty good eating (38 energy as opposed to selling them which only gives 40 gold) Not sure how it works exactly, but I do tend to notice that if one tree gives a non-common mushroom most of them do. (Also, I think red/purple mushrooms are more common in fall?)
Cheese is used in making Pepper Poppers, which give a speed boost. The cheese itself is good because it gives a ton of health and stamina, so good to carry into the mines with you. The mushrooms provided are deterministic based on the date of the previous harvest. If the previous harvest was on a 10th or 20th, and it wasn't a purple mushroom, then the next one will always be a Purple Mushroom. If the previous one was a purple mushroom, it will always be a Red Mushroom. For more information, check the Wiki. Multi-harvest plants (like Ancient Fruit, Hops, Blueberries... things you don't need to replant after harvesting) will NEVER expire in a Greenhouse, which is why they are so awesome in there. Ancient Fruit outside of the Greenhouse will be viable in Spring, Summer, *AND* Fall. But will die off Winter 1. Which is good, because it takes a full season for it to grow (you'll want to use Deluxe Speed-Gro for an extra harvest out of the year).
