Stardew Valley/Tips and Tricks

Positive Tips and Tricks

Watch TV
The TV in your house isn’t just decoration, unlike the tables and chairs. Use it every day to get the weather forecast. The “Living off the Land” program is a bit like a tutorial - when it’s on, it tells you something useful about the game, like where to look for Spring Onions or when berries are in season. The Queen of Sauce program will teach you recipes that your character can use when they have upgraded their house.

Dig up worms
Always carry your hoe with you. If you see a trio of little heads poking up through the soil, dig it up. It’s an “Artifact Spot.” Maybe it’s clay or mixed seeds - but it could be a bit of nice ore, and it’s quite likely to be a Lost Book, which you will later be able to read in the library, or an artifact, and you want to donate lots of artifacts and minerals to the Library because eventually that will unlock a new part of the game. In Winter these ‘worms’ are more common, but they often yield winter forage.

Explore and enter every building
During the foraging phase of Spring, it’s a good time to learn your way around. You’ll start with a map with buildings marked on it as ???. After you’ve entered a building, its description will change - among other things, NPC dwellings will be labelled with the residents’ names. This makes it much easier, first to complete the introductions quest, and secondly to find people later when you have quests.

Wield your scythe or sword when you’re tired
If energy is a problem for you, you probably don’t want to burn energy accidentally watering things, which is all too easy to do, particularly if you’re in the middle of harvesting. It doesn’t matter which tool you’re holding when you’re harvesting or talking to people or foraging. Swinging a scythe or a sword takes no energy, making them good choices. And the scythe is wonderfully selective and never cuts crops that aren’t ripe and ready for the scythe.

Soak in the Spa to rebuild your energy
On 3rd of Summer Year 1, a new area opens, to a train station and Bath house. You can go for a swim in the pool. This is not purely cosmetic; while you are sitting still in the water, your energy will regenerate. (So will health, if you've taken damage.) A round trip from your farm to the spa and back will take about 3 hours (longer if you're not using the BackWoods route) so this is not useful once food is plentiful, but if you're consistently running out of energy by noon it may well be worth it.

Plant Cauliflower, Melons and Pumpkins in large areas
Sometimes any 3x3 array of Cauliflower, Melon or Pumpkin will turn into a single giant vegetable. You will need to take your axe to this vegetable in order to harvest it - but instead of yielding 9 vegetables, it will yield at least 15, maybe more. All of these crops are slow growing and valuable. This doesn't happen enough to make a lot of difference to your profit or discourage you if you'd rather use sprinklers. But it can be a fun bonus.

If you have a 3x3 array of these crops, it will have 1% chance of turning into a giant. Every 3x3 array gets this chance, even if it overlaps with another array. So if you have a 3x4 there will be two chances, if you have a 4x4 there will be 4 chances, and if you have a 5x5 there will be 9 chances. While many crops can be grown in long lines or any shape you feel like, these three crops are better grown in patches. A 9x9 grid of maturing crops will give you a pretty good chance (39%) of seeing one, and an 18x18 grid will give you a near guarantee (92%) of seeing at least one and a pretty good chance (47%) of seeing three or more.

Not all the crops need to be ripe at the same time. Even new seedlings can contribute to a giant vegetable, so long as some of the plants are ripe, which is another bonus because then their soil is available for new planting very early. This means that it’s good to expand an existing patch when you can get more seeds.

Water your pet’s bowl
It’s obvious enough that your pet likes to be petted every day; it will pop up a love heart when you do so. Behind and to the left of your house is a lounge area with a water bowl. Your pet will love you more if you fill this every day. Does this matter? It’s mostly cosmetic - though if your pet loves you enough, Grandpa will approve, and his approval can yield a wonderful reward.

Pet your cows and goats only as you milk them
They pop up one love heart when you pet them, and another when you milk them. But if you pet them twice in one day, the second attempt pops up the animal’s status screen. This will help you avoid milking an animal twice in one day, which is a waste of time and energy.

To milk an animal, wield the milk-pail and click on its *feet* - this is often one square lower than you needed to click to pet them.

Zoom out
Under the game options tab of the menu where you see your inventory, you can zoom out to 75% and see around much better.

Try before you water Mixed Seeds
Mixed Seeds (not Wild Seeds) are what you get when cutting Weeds with your Scythe. They turn randomly into crop seeds of the current season when you plant them. If you aren't interested in random seeds, you can plant them and inspect the seeds they create (using the Wiki Crops article) before you water them. If you don't like what you see, you can remove them with your axe or pickaxe and try again. Maybe you will like that a little more than trashing them.