For any type of RPG or strategy game, your character’s skills, experience, and level always play a big part in how much you progress in the game. Whether that’s due to how easily you can defeat the boss or due to how much you’ll have to grind, your skills and level always matter. While that still applies to Stardew Valley, money is a bigger problem. Since it is an RPG-farming simulator, you’ll have to deal with not just the buying and selling of crops but upgrading your farm and equipment as well. To help you earn that sweet, sweet cash, we’ve put together this list of Stardew Valley’s best crops!
Best Crops in Stardew Valley
Stardew Valley crops can be split into four categories, namely spring, summer, fall, and winter crops. Players use crops to earn money for the most part, but they are also good gifts for Stardew Valley NPCs. Every crop has six stages of growth, with the sixth one being the harvest stage. There are specific crops that regrow their harvestable crop and others are multi-seasonal.
However, a lot of these crops aren’t that accessible to first-year players as they need either a lot of investment money for seeds or access to originally closed-off areas. For first-year players, we’ll include at least one crop you can plant for each season that you can either get easily or buy from Pierre’s or JojaMart.
Also read: Stardew Valley Beginner’s Guide
Stardew Valley’s Best Crops for Spring
Spring is the first season in the game and the one you start in. While you can find general start-up tips and what to do first when playing the game in our beginner’s guide, we’ll tell you what crops to plant here!
1. Strawberries
The best normal crop for spring, strawberries are the costliest crops for the season. This is due to it selling for a good 120g each just for normal quality ones. Strawberries take just eight days to grow and mature. They also regrow their fruit every after four days which allows for multiple harvests. The only downside to this is that you can only get its seed either from the Seed Maker using a strawberry or by buying one for 100g during the egg festival.
2. Rhubarb
Rhubarb is another Stardew valley crop that you can farm in springtime. While it can’t be re-harvested like strawberries, it does sell for a good 220g each for normal quality ones. This crop takes just 13 days from planting to harvest. Those wanting to plant these, though, have to wait until they can access the Oasis to get some for 100g, or they can hope to get lucky and buy seed or two from the Traveling Cart.
3. Cauliflower
The third most expensive spring crop, cauliflower, takes just 12 days to fully harvest. Compared to the previous two spring crops, you can easily buy cauliflower seeds from Pierre’s or JojaMart. Pierre does sell the seeds 20g cheaper at just 80g compared to JojaMart, though. Each normal quality head of cauliflower sells for a good 175g each. It can also be used for tailoring to create dyeable shirts and belts.
Stardew Valley’s Best Crops for Summer
Summer is the second season and one with a little more variety of crops. Although they may not be as expensive as the later fall crops, summer is a good time to save up cash for next season’s seeds.
1. Starfruit
The best summer crop in Stardew Valley, starfruit grows from seed to maturity in just 13 days. Starfruit is another plant where you need access to the oasis to get. Once there, you can buy seeds for it at 400g per seed, but you can easily make up for the cost after harvesting it. Starfruit is the second-most expensive crop in the entire game and sells at a whopping 750g for even the normal quality variety.
2. Red Cabbage
Visually similar to spring’s cauliflower, red cabbage is the second most expensive summer crop. It sells at 260g per head for normal quality red cabbage. A normal crop available after the second year, you can get seeds from Pierre’s for just 100g and plant them. You only need to wait nine days before you can harvest each seed.
3. Blueberry
Similar to strawberries, blueberries have a lot going for them. Aside from growing from seed to maturity in just 13 days, there’s also a small chance you’ll get more than three blueberries per harvest. It also regrows its fruits in just four days. Each normal quality blueberry sells for a solid 50g, a good deal since each plant assures at least three per seed. You can get some blueberry seeds from Pierre’s for just 80g. If you have a preserves jar or a keg, you can turn blueberries into artisan products and sell them for more.
Stardew Valley’s Best Crops for Fall
Stardew Valley’s best fall crops contain its most expensive one as well, sweet gem berries. Aside from that, fall has a lot of seed and crop varieties that you could experiment on.
1. Sweet Gem Berry
As we said, sweet gem berries are the most expensive crops you can sell in Stardew Valley and go for a whopping 3,000g apiece for even the normal quality ones. However, sweet gem berry seeds are quite hard to find, with the in-game name literally being “rare seed.” These seeds need almost a month to grow and harvest at 24 days. The only place you can get one is from the Travelling Cart for 600g to 1000g. This is all a matter of luck, though, as with all of the goods the cart sells. You will most likely find it easier to find these seeds being sold during spring and summer compared to fall or winter.
2. Pumpkin
The second most expensive fall crop, pumpkins are conventional ones that can only be harvested once. It takes a good 13 days for pumpkins to grow from seed to harvestable maturity. While its growth is quite normal, you can sell normal quality pumpkins for a decent 320g per piece. To grow some, you can buy some seeds from Pierre’s for 100g or from JojaMart for 125g.
3. Cranberries
Another regrowing and fast-maturing crop like strawberries, cranberries need only seven days to mature and be harvestable. After that, it needs five days to regrow its bounty. While you can sell each berry bunch for 75g, each harvest gives at least two bunches. You can buy a normal seed from Pierre for 240g or from JojaMart for 300g.
Can You Grow Stardew Valley Crops in Winter?
Winter is a complicated season as you technically can’t grow any crops on your farm during this season. But there are a few exceptions to this and one of which is by getting a greenhouse. A greenhouse on Stardew Valley is a specialized farm building that allows you to grow crops without relying too much on the season.
If you happen to have a greenhouse, the best Stardew Valley crops to cultivate during the wintertime are the ancient fruits. While the most expensive crops are the previously mentioned sweet gem berry and starfruit, both of them are only harvestable once. Compared to the time and effort you’ll have to put into planting and watering these plants daily, the ancient fruit is a better option. This is due to ancient fruit needing 28 days to fully mature but regrowing its harvest every seven days thereafter.
There are several ways to get Stardew Valley’s ancient seeds; all of them rely partly on luck. The first is to get a rare ancient seed artifact that you then donate to Gunter’s Museum and get rewarded with the seeds. Another way is to buy some from the Traveling Cart for 100g to 1000g. The chances for the seeds appearing is as low as 1.26%, however. The third way is to get lucky in using the Seed Maker as you have a 0.5% chance of getting ancient seeds instead of seeds from the crop you placed in.
If you don’t have a greenhouse, which is understandable since it’s hard to obtain, growing crops during winter will be pointless. Instead of wasting your funds on planting, you should exert your efforts on other money-making activities in the game. Cultivating more animals, raising slimes, and mining are some of the worthwhile winter tasks for you to obtain more gold in Stardew Valley.
Other Money Making Activities and Tips
Since this article is all about making money, here are a few other activities and tips to get yourself some more cash and build a successful Stardew Valley farm.
Mining
Mining is an option during the winter for first-year players or those who haven’t unlocked the greenhouse yet. You can access “The Mines” after Spring 5 on the first year when Joja Corporation clears the landslide. Now that you can access the area, you can start mining different nodes for copper, iron, and other minerals that you can either sell or use to upgrade your equipment. Be aware that you can mine in other places in-game as well.
Fishing
You can potentially earn a lot by fishing or trapping the many fish and crustaceans around Pelican Town. We have our own guide to Stardew Valley fishing to get you started.
Artisan Equipment
You can also process your crops and goods by turning them into wine, pickles, or jelly. To start with, you first need artisan equipment like a Preserves Jar, a Cask, or a Keg. While it does need specialized equipment, processed crops sell for a lot more than if you sold them directly.
Fruit Trees
Aside from normal crops, you can also plant fruit trees in your farming area. You can get seeds for trees like orange, apricot, cherry, apple, and pomegranate from Pierre’s place or from the Traveling Cart. These trees usually require a full 28 days to fully grow and would only bear fruit during specific seasons.
Crop Quality
There are a lot of things that determine the quality of your crops. These criteria include your skills, whether the crops were properly watered or not, their seeds, and most of all, if you’ve used fertilizer or not. You should experiment with your fertilizers and level up your skills as much as you can to get the best crops in the game.
Multi-Seasonal Crops
Aside from seasonal crops, there are also multi-seasonal ones. These crops can grow for more than one season and can survive the automatic season change. These crops include corn (summer and fall), coffee beans (spring and summer), and wheat (summer and fall).
Giant Crops
Another thing you should note is giant crops. While they only have a 1% chance of growing, the advantages of giant crops are that they give a sizable 15 to 21 pieces of the crop for each “giant” crop. These crops are limited only to cauliflower in spring, melon in summer, and pumpkins in fall, however. To get a chance at getting a giant crop, you have to plant either of the three crops during their season in a three-by-three grid and continue watering them as normal.
