Stardew Valley/First Spring: Difference between revisions

You start the game on your farm that is west (left) of the bus stop that brought you here. A town is east (right) of the bus stop. Your farm consists of everything you can go to without a screen change. You have 500 gold, 15 parsnips, and whichever farm map you chose (For your first game the Standard map is a good choice; if you’re playing on another map you may need to think about where your water and your open land are, before choosing where to plant your seeds.)

* Community Center: Get rewarded for the Spring Crops and Spring Forage bundles. Save 5 gold star Parsnips and Cauliflower for the Gold Star Crops bundle.

* Pick up any wild plants (Spring forage) you see

* Plant and water 15 Parsnips (not more today) and maybe a few Mixed Seeds.

* Chop trees toward 50 wood for a chest. (Ship all fiber for gold and to make backpack room until you get a chest. Ship sap second only if necessary.)

** Don't plant more than 15 Parsnips. You will possibly plant 25 more tomorrow.

** Drop on ground. If you try to craft a chest or retrieve something when your backpack is full, you don't always have to throw something away to make room for it. Instead drop your lowest value stack of items onto the ground off to the side of your menu. It will always drop directly in front of you, so this could drop things in the water if you are fishing.

* Zoom all the way out (75%) so you can see better.  Zoom is under the menu/inventory box, Options tab.  After every zoom change, your screen will reset, and you will need to scroll down again to the Zoom option. Your zoom level is saved when you go to sleep.

* Turn on "Always Show Tool Hit Location" to help you save energy by avoiding errant tool use.

Now it's time to plant. Pick up your free seeds and leave your house. Pause the clock without obscuring your farm by checking your mailbox or trying to chop a big stump (only once, and only if necessary; it uses energy). While the clock is paused, choose a place to plant your 15 Parsnips. Whenever the clock is not paused, clear weeds generally in your preferred area with your energy-free scythe. You want to be near a water source, and you don't want to clear even one rock today (later you do, but today you would like to get close to the 50 wood you need for a storage chest if you can muster the energy). So find a mostly clear or grassy/weedy patch of ground (away from big stumps, nearly rock-free, maybe not obscured by trees, and not too big; you still have city slicker muscles and cheap tools) near a pond.

* Allow for a scarecrow. Plan for  for 160 crops with a 3x3 square empty in the middle of a field shaped like a plus sign. [[File:SDV-scarecrow-middle.png|thumb|50px|Scarecrow in middle of 20 squares]]  Or leave a space left (west) or right (east) of a future rectangular field. Either way, one scarecrow can guard 5 squares in the first column near it and 3 squares in the second (64 crops on one side) without obscuring any crops. Two scarecrows centered on the edges of a field can cover 3 x 5 squares (9 x 15 tiles) wide or tall. (Scarecrows are very soon cheap enough you don't need to worry too much about optimizing them, so relax and have fun.) [[File:SDV-scarecrows-3x5-square-tall.png|thumb|50px|Tall 3 x 5 grid of square]]

Using your scythe and hoe only, prepare and water a tile here for each of your 15 seeds. If you get mixed seeds using your scythe on Weeds now or anytime today, trash them or plant them too (saving for later would be best, but your space is limited) until every seed is planted and watered.

==== Craft a chest ====

Use your axe to chop the top (leaving the stump to get maximum Foraging experience for your limited energy) of enough trees near your house and any small logs you can't avoid (they don't level up your Foraging at all) to get 50 wood in your backpack. Then craft a chest and put it near your field, your house, and your path to town. Before you leave your farm, unload everything except your hoe and food into the chest.

Avoid using your pickaxe on rocks until you have a chest.

* Practice noting [https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Artifact_Spot Artifact Spots], [https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Garbage_Can Garbage Cans] (there are 7), and the Beach, but leave them alone for now.

Use the rest of your energy and time to clear small rocks and weeds from your farm. But don't get exhausted! Exhaustion doesn't go away, and it lasts through tomorrow. If your energy bar gets right down to scarlet - and you get the message "You are becoming exhausted," stop right there and eat or switch to your scythe only for the rest of the day.

Clear weeds. If you still have time left, swinging your scythe takes no energy, and weeds stand in the way of your your movement, crops, trees, and off-farm forage, so cut down as many weeds as you can easily find until you are out of time. If you get any more mixed seeds, save them for later this month. Before you run out of time, ship all Fiber for overnight gold and go to bed.

Rare Offer Alert: There is an Egg Festival on Spring 13. It's your annual chance to buy seeds for Strawberry to harvest and sell twice before Summer comes. This is very valuable to you as you start because it will put lots of money in the ground without taking all your time and energy to water that money. You can do this if you transition to Potatoes (they cost 2.5 times as much as Parsnips and take 1.5 times as long--6 days) by Spring 6. Pierre's store is closed on Festival days,  so you can't sell your harvest on Spring 13. To step up from Parsnip (Spring 1 and 2) to Potato (Spring 5 and 6) to Strawberry (Spring 16), you need to harvest and sell everything on or before the 12th to get enough money to buy lots of Strawberry at the Egg Festival.

Planting calendar: From today to Spring 6, save all your money (up to 4000gp) for up to 80 Potatoes. Right now you don't want to be watering more than 40 Parsnips, and you can get money for Potatoes by fishing and foraging. Save any Mixed Seeds you find for later. You won't have time for three harvests of Parsnips before the Egg Festival, so you may as well save up from here out for Potatoes on Spring 6. Switching to potatoes on Spring 6 helps you keep your field small to save time and energy to work on other important things.

Wild Plants: Don't bother hunting for anything but Spring Onions today. Spring Onions respawn independently every day, so you can swing by there any day you need the energy, but the other wild plants [https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Foraging#Spawning_Limit accumulate 0-4 per screen area through Saturday night up to 6 per area]. So wait until Saturday to look for them or sooner (normally Tuesday/Wednesday) if you need the energy badly.

If you strike out early at fishing (due to lack of funds and skill), leave it for later (or never) and prepare for mining by chopping more tree tops for another chest (50) and lots of rock-breaking on your farm until you are low on energy.

Today is rainy (Future rainy days are random, but not today). Work on clearing your field and farm including rocks and tree tops, just don't waste your energy tilling it with your hoe ahead of time; early tilling can revert.

There are no fish unique to Spring for the Community Center, so you have a couple of months to save one Sunfish and as much time as you want to save the other CC fish you find, so feel free to delay fishing—unless it's making you money—until your fields are sprinkled or sell or eat anything you catch right now. After a couple of months, the only significant value of fishing will be fun and CC completion

If you've cleared your farm of rocks, now would be a good time to plan and start planting a double-spaced row of Oak seeds (Acorns) along the newly cleared south border. You collect seeds by chopping tree tops or fallen seeds.

If you get out of The Mines before midnight, you may want to catch the Friday night action at the Saloon and listen to the villagers. Later on, you can keep chests full of gifts in a [https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Worm_Bin safe location] near the Saloon and hand out gifts on Fridays after 5pm and evenings.

* Drop off whatever you have for Gunther to get reward money and make room in your backpack. Check your Journal and collect any gold you have coming to you for completing Story Quests so far.

* Get your geodes smashed by Clint at the Blacksmith. Then return to the Museum if you have new donations. Count your donations. If there are already 5 or as soon as there are, collect a reward of free Cauliflower seeds and plant as many of them now as you want to commit to watering alongside your Potatoes (count the cost) for big experience points to unlock Preserves Jars and start processing early (200%+ value). Save the rest to grow alongside your Strawberries after your Potatoes are harvested (there is only time for one full Cauliflower harvest either way).

Save all your money for Strawberries at the Egg Festival. Resist the temptation to upgrade your backpack until you get your Strawberry seeds.

Young [https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Vincent Vincent] would like a Daffodil for his birthday today. The official Wiki can tell you where to find him.

Today would not be a bad day to make a wild plants round.

=== Spring 10-12 ===

3. When you get back home at 10pm, plant the Strawberries in the prepared and watered spaces.

=== Spring 14-16 ===

=== Spring 17-21 ===

Now you can upgrade your backpack any time you want or use the same 2,000 to buy gold ore for your first Quality Sprinkler assuming you are now rolling in Iron and Quartz, but not Gold.

Plant potatoes as money comes in. Do not keep more than one Strawberry (to turn into seed for a Greenhouse operation). Sell them. Now is when you need the money most.

As soon as you level up in Foraging to the Tapper recipe, tap one of each tree where you can see them while you tend your crops. Then start tapping Oak trees on the west end and south row you've planted. You can also cut all those stumps you left now.

Your Cauliflower and first Strawberry harvests should unlock Preserves Jars, which more than double the value of basic produce in only 2-3 days. In fact, [https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Preserves_Jar#Preserves_Jar_vs._Keg "the preserves jar will outpace the keg regardless of the base value of the item (in every case) since the preserve jar has a much faster processing time."] This could give you time to process at least two batches before buying Summer seeds. As soon as you get the Preserves Jar recipe, put jars in a building (house, coop, shed, or barn) or outside and start processing.

=== Spring 23-28 ===

Do not keep more than one Strawberry (as long-term seed for a possible Greenhouse project). Sell them. Now is when you need the money most. Next year you can buy plenty when you are rich.

As soon as you reach The Mines floor 80 in descent mode, you should have at least four Furnaces in operation near your mining chest and start hitting elevator floors 30-75 in picky quick-bail farming mode for Coal and ore (pick up everything else too with a priority to Quartz) to make basic Sprinklers. When you reach floor 110 (nice rewards down here!), hit elevator floors 100 and 105 to make Quality Sprinklers. Basic Sprinklers can be used in the mid-term as field extenders, and they have some specialty uses even later on, so don't feel you need to leapfrog them to Quality Sprinklers. Just lay them out like Quality Sprinklers and use them either to cut your watering in half (this doesn't work well with watering can upgrades, and that's why this walkthrough doesn't step you through a watering can upgrade) or as field extenders half planted until Quality Sprinkler service arrives.

Most of your days in Spring will revolve around watering your crops, and then fishing, mining, or exploring. Wander around the forests and the beach, picking up foraged items when you find them - in the first few days, an extra 200 gold pieces (gp) becomes that many more seeds in the ground, and it gets your financial snowball going just that bit faster. Later, use the food you find to restore your health and energy in the mines when the monsters get you or to clear your farm and forage areas. If you are feeling sociable, wander around town, introducing yourself to everyone (first quest!), or it's okay to put your social life on hold (gifting and quests can be expensive and overwhelming at first) until you are a rich farmer with sprinkled crops or an upgraded watering can. On rainy days, if your luck on TV is good, try [[Stardew_Valley/Mining|mining]] another 5 floors down, and if it's not so good, go fishing, foraging, exploring, and socializing.

=== Lazy seeds ===

This walkthrough helps you finish your watering mid-morning to give you time for mining copper, iron, and beyond for tappers, sprinklers, and tool upgrades or fishing for cash and energy. You can finish watering as early as 9am at your fastest and still profit well if you step methodically from Parsnips to Potatoes to Strawberries.

As you get richer, but before Spring has ended, make sure you've kept a few things for quests, the community center, and maybe the fair. Organize them in dedicated chests you can color code if you want.

In your Quests chest, keep one basic example of every item on hand throughout the month for quests. As you get richer, keep two.

** If you till first with your hoe, you can plant trees (but not crops) all over the valley, even on the beach.  And clear your weeds, rocks, and logs mercilessly to make way for trees and grass.

** If you cross the river directly south of your farm you should find the entrance to the Sewers and some trees near large patches of dirt.  These patches of dirt often contain Spring Onions (during Spring, of course) and the Spring Onions regrow and reset every day - you can pick them right from day 1, and revisit them later.  Like Salmonberries, they sell for very little but they are worth eating when you’re running out of energy. Unlike Spring Onions, all other forageables do not disappear every night - they spawn every day and accrue up to a limit until Saturday night. Then they [https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Foraging#Spawning_Limit reset on Sunday].  This means that you are best advised to forage once or twice a week for everything else and possibly every day for Spring Onions if you need energy more than time.

** Prioritize eating your extra forage in this order: eat Salmonberry (15th-18th), eat Spring Onions, eat Leeks, eat Dandelions, sell Wild Horseradish, and gift, save, or sell Daffodils.

** Salmonberries will be available from Spring 15-18.  (The TV show "Living on the Land" will alert you to this on the 15th.)  These are a foraged item - “use” a bush that is decorated in berries to collect them.  They’re worth only 5 gp each - even for a new farmer that’s negligible.  But they provide energy, and you can collect a lot of them - some simply as you walk around to places like town and the community centre, but there are many many suitable bushes in Cindersap Forest, south of your farm.  You might collect as many as 100 Salmonberries, and this provides good fuel for trips to the mines.

** Repairing the bridge at the beach before Spring 6 if you can afford the energy to collect 300 wood, especially if you are fishing at the ocean often, can help you buy more Strawberry seeds and provide several weeks of significant income before you get too rich and busy to care. The tidal pools on the other side usually yield about 300gp worth of foraged items per visit - varying between 100gp on a poor day and 1000 gp on an exceptional one. This is well worthwhile for a starting farmer.

See the [[Stardew_Valley/Fishing#Coping_with_poor_fishing_skills|Fishing article]]. It's common to find fishing frustratingly hard. The only way through that is to level up your character's skill, and you may not have time for that until later in the year if ever. Depending on how bad your skill is, you may want to start by fishing even for trash for hours in your own pond or the mountain lake east (right) of the Carpenter Shop (the east end of the long fence or the south end of the island in the lake are often recommended for easy fishing) until enough skill-free fish happen along over a few sessions to level you up. Once you have any personal skill at all or are able to put bait on your upgraded pole to keep the fish biting, buy trout soup from Willy to boost your fishing level for a few real-world minutes while you fish. Maybe you will even start to like fishing!

At the end of Spring, if you have spent most of your days watering, you will have hundreds of crops, and hopefully enough money to buy a nice fat heap of Summer seeds, to upgrade your backpack for the first time (2000 gp) and preferably to also buy and plant an Apple and a Pomegranate tree which will fruit in Fall.  They take 28 days to mature, and you want them for the Community Centre bundles; the fruit is also good for wines, jellies, or just selling outright. If you can only afford one, make it the Apple, and consider getting the Pomegranate in mid Summer. But if you don't have enough, there is always next year. Alternatively, if you have spent most of your days mining you will have limited your field to around 120 crops, but you will hopefully have lots of ore to automate your watering to focus on fishing and socializing soon.

Once you have some copper to spare, craft three Tappers and put them on the three different types of trees.  Choose trees you will often pass near, so that you notice when the sap is ready.  (Later tappers will mainly go on Oak trees because the resin is needed for Kegs.)  The different types of sap are useful for Community Centre bundles and for crafting; and most villagers like Maple Syrup.  It is rare to sell the produce from Tappers!

If you have chosen not to mine much, getting the Copper upgrade on your watering can will noticeably increase your capacity to water your crops.  The problem with upgrading tools is that Clint holds onto the tools for two nights, and if you don’t water your crops for a day, they grow only slowly; if you miss two days they die.  So the way to manage it is to check the TV’s weather forecast every morning until the forecast includes rain.  Water the crops by 2pm, and deliver your can to Clint by 4pm; the rain will water your crops for you on the middle day, and on the next day you can collect the upgraded watering can at 9am, take it home, and water your crops - and never a day has been missed!   

If you have done particularly well earning money in Spring, you may reach the point of having earned 25,000gp before the end of Spring.  Whether this happens in Spring or later, Demetrius will drop by and ask to use your cave for Science; Fruit Bats or Mushrooms.  Fruit Bats deliver an erratic range of fruits and berries - they can bring you anything from Salmonberries (5gp) to Pomegranates (140g), often one, sometimes four; the frequency is also uncertain.  Mushrooms deliver different sorts of mushrooms (mostly Commons), every second day - from six planter boxes.  Mushrooms are usually recommended; they’re more reliable, probably worth more, and it’s harder to come across them by other means. Just be sure to plant trees for fruit.