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You start the game on your farm that is in the west (left) of the Bus Stop that brought you here. The Pelican Town is in the east (right) of the Bus Stop.
Your farm consists of everywhere 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 chose another map you may need to think about where your water and your open land are before choosing where to plant your seeds.)
What am I doing?
The story consists of
Befriending the villagers (including eventual marriage and children), which you mainly do by
Giving them just the right gifts especially on birthdays (!)
Listening when they want to talk
Helping to rebuild the Community Center and the Museum, which you do by contributing a variety of items.
An unfolding series of Story Quests that appear in your Journal
It doesn't matter at all to the story how many years those take. But some things can only be done certain days or seasons each year. This walkthrough follows the story, alerts you to those things, and helps you know what items to save or spend.
See tips for the month at the end of this article.
This Spring walk-through will help you cover all these good goals for your first Spring:
Socializing: Remember every birthday this month with an appropriate gift.
Community Center: Get rewarded for completing donations to the Spring Crops and Spring Foraging bundles. Save 5 gold star Parsnips (to put with Summer Melon and Corn) for the Quality Crops bundle.
Museum: Claim a Cauliflower Seeds reward before Spring 16 for donating at least 5 items. Plant it by Spring 16.
Foraging: Hoe all wigglers, get some food for mining, save 4 gold star Daffodils for birthdays and one basic Leek, Dandelion, Wild Horseradish, and Daffodil for the Community Center. Tap some trees, mostly oak.
Mining and Combat: Get ore and minerals from The Mines and loot from the monsters you kill there.
Fishing: Try fishing for at least a day with the tips here. Then fish for energy and income if you can. Otherwise work on leveling up when you have spare time.
Farming: Do just enough to level up and get rewards at first since you are flabby at first. Step up to more expensive crops and build some sprinklers. This calendar balances energy/time and growth by saving all your money to put the most expensive crops possible in the ground. It also has a day of padding in case you miss any watering; the earlier days are always safest.
Spoiler
Legendary crop alert: The legendary crop in Stardew Valley is Ancient Fruit, and you can't buy seeds for it. You must snowball from a single Ancient Seed artifact (or any additional ones) you happen to find into Ancient Seeds (with an "s"), then to Ancient Fruit, more seeds, and more fruit and beyond. So when you happen to find any Ancient Seed artifact, feel very lucky, plant it immediately (generally), and don't sell it or its raw produce until year 2. Save all produce for when you get a Seed Maker, then replant the seeds immediately.
Pick up any wild plants (Spring forage) you see. (see "First Day\Get wild plants" section below)
Listen to anything anybody has to say. Good friends listen, and you never know what you may learn.
Plant and water 15 crops (15 max until Spring 6); 15 Parsnips or 13 Parsnips plus a Green Bean and a Cauliflower. Save your money and Mixed Seeds for later.
Spoiler
You need to harvest at least 13 Parsnips on Spring 5 to unlock Scarecrows and Basic Fertilizer for your Spring 6 planting.
Watering 16 crops unlocks destructive crows, and you don't have a Scarecrow.
Watering 40 crops in your first week pushes the limits of your energy.
You can get 20 extra Strawberries at the end of the month or 20 extra weeks on your Ancient Fruit snowball if you use Parsnip, Potato, Green Bean, and Cauliflower to complete the Community Center Spring Crops bundle on Spring 13 and get a Speed Gro reward for it. You can plant a Potato on Spring 5 or 6 after your first Parsnips are harvested. You need to plant Cauliflower today. And since it's economical to have Green Bean repeating all month, why not plant one now and bring your Parsnips total to the minimum 13 required to level up for Scarecrow and Fertilizer recipes?
Either stick to 15 exactly or go big at the risk losing Cauliflower and Green Bean and running low on time and energy. If you go big, you may want to stick to Parsnips and forget about getting Deluxe Speed Gro on your Strawberries.
Top trees and make a Chest. (Ship Fiber for gold and to make backpack room until you get a Chest; ship Sap and Clay only if necessary; you'll want hundreds of Sap and 10 Clay before long.)
Spoiler
Topping trees instead of chopping them all the way is the fastest way to unlock tree seeds and Tappers (to get Oak Resin for Kegs to make big Summer Pale Ale income with Hops) with your limited energy. In addition, stumps on your farm keep dropping seeds until you remove them. (Off your farm they don't drop seeds; they grow back.)
You'll need lots of Sap to craft Fertilizer to help you get quality crops this month.
You'll need 10 Clay to build a Silo this month.
Be in the house by 1:50 a.m. (see Spoiler under Clear your farm at the end of Day 1)
Your weaknesses today
Energy. You are appallingly flabby at the moment.
Don't have more than 15 crops to water until Spring 6 (see Spoiler under To Do crops). Save your energy for trees, rocks, and (later) fishing.
Avoid using your pickaxe at all today. To exit your farm south using no pickaxe and little axe energy, head directly south from your mailbox/shipping bin/pond area before turning west. Or use the Screenshot tool
Avoid tilling or watering anything unnecessarily.
Chop down tree tops only (leave stumps) for maximum experience for the energy you spend.
Backpack space.
Chest(s)! Save every bit of your energy today to chop tree tops (leave stumps) for wood to build a Chest. Make up for limited space by carrying a chest with you to use (see safe locations at the official Worm Bin article) at your fishing spot, the Mines, the Blacksmith, the Saloon, and other places.
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.
Your strengths today
Time. Time is always short in Stardew Valley. But you have very little going on and as much free time as ever today. Greet people you see, forage, and use your scythe as frequently as possible on weeds wherever you see them for fiber to sell and possibly mixed seeds to plant later.
Fresh start. Your future is wide open. If you feel lost and would like more time just to explore and window shop Stardew Valley before committing to Grandpa's farm, you can use Exit to Title under the inventory/menu and Load the day again without penalty other than losing anything you did since you awoke. Stardew Valley saves your progress when you go to sleep every night. You can retry the same day as many times as you want until you go to sleep and it's a new day.
Walk-through
Plant your free seeds
Prepare yourself first.
Get out of bed and look at the TV programs for the weather tomorrow and the luck today. Rain tomorrow means no watering, which could be nice to know later so you can drop off your watering can for an upgrade. Good luck is useful mostly for affected activities you can control that you want to repeat all day, like finding ladders, coal, and geodes under rocks when mining (doesn't affect spawning ladders on load or when monsters die), getting treasure chests while fishing, and chopping for maximum wood. Bad luck days are great for unaffected activities like trips around the valley to forage, shop, break geodes, socialize, and donate to the Museum and Community Center. Bad luck days are also okay for affected activities you can't control or repeat like crops and trash can rummaging.
If you are lost and want to explore before committing to your Grandpa's farm, practice looking around your farm and Stardew Valley (practice using the Screenshot tool). Exit and Load the day again (your day is not saved until you go to sleep) until you can follow the map in your backpack and find your way around the valley and your farm. Once you are not lost and know what Spring Onions (they look a little different in the ground), Leeks, Dandelions, Wild Horseradish, Daffodils, Artifact Spots (aka worms or wigglers), and Weeds look like, continue.
Zoom all the way out so you can see better. Zoom is under the menu/inventory box, Options tab. 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. Turn it off later to improve your skills.
Now it's time to plant using as little energy as possible. Pick up your free seeds and leave your house. Use the Screenshot tool to choose a place to plant your 15 crops. Clear Grass and 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 save your energy to get 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.
3x3 squares
For the first year and beyond, a field layout of 3x3 squares is perfect.
Leave the middles empty, at least temporarily.
Helps you visualize your layout and count things easily while you till, plant, harvest, and make your shopping list.
Trains yourself not to "commit" your sprinkler spaces to anything slow-growing
Allows for your first sprinklers in case you want to stop watering. You can fill in the middles anytime if you decide you don't want sprinklers or you want to see giant crops.
Allow for a scarecrow. Plan for 160 crops with a 3x3 square empty in the middle of a field shaped like a plus sign. 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.) Scarecrows with tall 3 x 5 grid of squares
Using your scythe and hoe only (to save energy), prepare and plant 13 of your Parsnips. Then water them. If you get Mixed Seeds using your scythe on Weeds now or anytime today, trash them (zero value), save them in your Chest, or test them to determine if they yield the Green Bean or Cauliflower seeds you want before you water them. Testing will cost you energy and time, so you may be better off buying a single Cauliflower and Green Bean when you are in town.
Your Parsnips should be ready for harvest on Spring 5th and your Cauliflower on Spring 13 if you keep them watered every day. Note how much energy that all cost you!
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 into the Chest.
Avoid using your pickaxe on rocks until you have a Chest.
Go shopping, foraging, and socializing
Take only your hoe with you.
Use the Screenshot tool to get a God's eye view of any location (new screen) you enter to help find forage, artifact spots, and people.
Forage around the valley using your Scythe to chop weeds and picking up all the plants you can find. If you get any plants with stars, it means you leveled up Foraging.
Eat (Spring Onions, Dandelions, and Leeks) or gift your forage if you need backpack space. See Spoiler for gifting guidance.
Spoiler
If you are interested in making friends right away, some people will appreciate the forage you find:
Practice noting Artifact Spots, Garbage Cans (there are 8), and the Beach, but leave them alone until you have chests to make room in your backpack.
Listen to anybody you see who has anything to say (before you listen to them, make sure your scythe is equipped instead of a wild plant unless you want them to take it as a gift).
Spoiler
There are many clues to gift preferences in the things the villagers say and do. For example, Linus lives on forage, and likes all forage (see table in wild plants spoiler above)
If you want a route suggestion, try clockwise going by (as shown on your map) Tent, the nearby lake, Carpenter's Shop, Community Center, playground and fountain, Harvey's Clinic, Pierre's General Store, green house with owl over door (Mullner), trailer house, JojaMart, Blacksmith, Museum, house with double-doors (Mayor's), Saloon, orange house with sun over door (2 Willow Lane), house with ship's wheel/helm over door (1 Willow Lane), house with green roof (Leah's Cottage), across the bridge to a Spring Onions patch), then maybe west and clockwise around the nearby lake before house with red roof and trim (Marnie's Ranch), and north back home (use the Screenshot tool and go east (right) on your farm to find a path through the debris), then checking the Bus Stop outside your east exit. Meeting everybody on day 1 is not a priority, but if that's fun for you to optimize, two good guides are Reddit HookItToMyVeins and Steam EvaPilot1.
If you want, you can ship all your Fiber for income. If you didn't get a chest and are desperate for backpack space, you can also ship Clay, Sap, and forage (in that order of preference; see spoilers in this section), though they will all come in useful this month.
Spoiler
You'll want lots of Sap to craft fertilizer to get gold star crops starting on Spring 6
You'll probably want 10 Clay for a Silo this month
Clear your farm
Use the rest of your energy and time to chop the tops only of more trees and 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 something or switch to your scythe only for the rest of the day.
Here's a guide to using your tools today.
Obstacle
Tool
Cost
Uses
grass (you can walk through it)
scythe
time only
none yet
weeds (you can't walk through it)
scythe
time only
money today, fiber for scarecrow soon
small logs, trees
axe
energy
wood for chests (50) and bridge repair (300) and sap for fertilizer (2) this week
small rocks (until you get a chest, aim for zero; after two chests, aim for 100 then your entire farm to level up mining)
pickaxe
energy
coal for scarecrow soon and stone for saving
Get your sleep. Be convenient to your house by 11:30 and go to bed as soon as you get sleepy (Zzzz) at midnight after shipping all Clay, Fiber, Wild Horseradish, and Daffodils before you sleep.
Spoiler
On a normal day, the longer you go to sleep after midnight, the more of your overnight energy recovery you lose. But in your first few days, you will likely be leveling up every night, and any night you level up you get full energy recovery. So it may be a few days before you see any penalty for going to bed late.
If you are not inside your house before 2 a.m., you will pass out and be charged 10% of your gold (up to a 1000 gold piece penalty). There are no exceptions to this penalty.
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 in your chest or trash them. Before you run out of time, ship all Fiber for overnight gold and go to bed.
First two weeks
Spring 2
Farming
Spoiler
Rare Offer Alert: There is an Egg Festival on Spring 13. It's your annual chance to buy seeds for Strawberry to harvest twice or thrice 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 and because you can make valuable wine or preserves with the Strawberries. You can do this if you transition to Kale + 1 Potato (they cost 3.5/2.5 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) to Kale/Potato (Spring 5 and 6) to Strawberry (Spring 13), 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 79 Kale + 1 Potato. Right now you don't want to be watering many Parsnips, and you can get money for Kale + 1 Potato by fishing and foraging. Save any Mixed Seeds you find for testing later or trash them. You won't have time for three harvests of Parsnips before the Egg Festival, so you may as well save up from here out to step up to Kale/Potatoes on Spring 6. Stepping up on Spring 6 helps you keep your field small to save time and energy to work on other important things.
Today: Water, top more trees if necessary for a second chest, empty your backpack except for a chest and your hoe, and go south from town to try fishing at the beach.
Foraging
Artifact Spots. Today, if you see Artifact spots, till them with your hoe.
Wild Plants: Don't bother hunting for anything but possibly Spring Onions today. Spring Onions vanish every night, so visiting daily makes some sense. But the other wild plants accumulate 0–4 per screen area through Saturday night up to 6 per area. So wait until Saturday to look for them or Wednesday (for twice per week foraging) if you need the energy badly.
Some people are able to make more money the first few weeks with fishing than with early crops. Try it out for a full day. If you strike out, you can wait a month to start fishing and stick to farming and foraging this season.
Water your 15 crops.
Clear your farm a bit until 7:30am and make another chest for the beach.
Go to the beach with a chest and some spare energy and/or money. Willy will give you an old fishing rod.
Try out the fishing mini game from the pier. Ignore your success on the first cast; it's fake and not representative. Try another 2-5 bites. If you did not like that, here's what you can do:
Make sure you have enough energy to learn to fish
Buy the training rod for 25gp
the minigame green bar will be like level 5
you can't catch Quality (starred) fish; this saves backpack space
you can level up once or twice in your first 18-hour day without even moving the mini-game green bar assuming you use the shortest casts possible (to save time and maximize catchable "basic" fish)
Try abstaining from moving the mini game green bar for an entire day or so. This alone will level you up once or twice.
Fish all day. Keep an empty space in your backpack at all times. Eat your smallest stacks of fish, forage, algae, and seaweed to make space or just for energy. All this will get you to fishing level 1 or beyond today. From there on out everything just gets better.
To become an expert fisher, keep fishing for experience until you drop. Fish non-stop for a few days before deciding whether fishing will be worth income until you become a rich farmer.
If you strike out early at fishing (due to lack of funds and skill), leave it for later 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.
If you are not going to fish, it may also be worth your effort to repair the Beach bridge to the tidal pools (300 wood) for income toward Strawberries. Keep getting wood by chopping tree tops until you reach Foraging level 3 (Tappers).
Toward the end of the day, check your skills tab to plan your bedtime (see spoiler under #Clear your farm at the end of Day 1).
Spring 3
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 anything for future days with your hoe; early tilling can revert.
Farming and Forage
Prepare for Spring 6 planting. Get your field area planned and cleared (not tilled) to a size of about 80 tiles. Save all possible sap for fertilizer; 20 fiber, 1 coal, and 50 wood for a scarecrow; and your foraging and fishing money for seeds. Aim to clear your field and your entire farm of all small rocks (for Mining experience). If you can finish this today and tomorrow, you will unlock Staircases for rapid descent in The Mines. When you run out of energy, continue to focus on weeds by the dozens all around your farm since you are still quite flabby, the sale value of the fiber is still significant to you this week, and weeds stand in the way of tree regrowth on your farm and forage spawning off your farm.
Cut the tops of trees that are crowded enough to obscure each other. The stumps don't help you level up as much, and they continue to spawn seeds (they do not regrow). Chop the stumps later for wood. As you need more wood, thin your farm more, especially on the west end, but do not clear cut beyond your field area, and leave one of each type close enough to your field to see while you tend your crops. Avoid felling Oak trees (the ones with a tight canopy and reflective mop top vs open canopy and visible branches) until you start getting seeds. Collect seeds, especially Acorns (Oak), for planting around the farm and the valley for Tapping.
Resist the temptation to snowball your field unmanageably large; you will be rolling in money soon enough, and a week or two either way won't ultimately matter much. What will matter is missing out on the things that this walkthrough alerts you about. Instead of overplanting willy nilly, stick to your 15 or 40 crops for now and save your money for more expensive crops on Spring 6.
You need to learn to carry your hoe at all times and notice wiggling "worms" Artifact Spots sticking out of any dirt you pass by. Digging up these spots is an important way to get some of the Artifacts to donate to the museum. And keep all Geodes. You want to donate 5 items to the Museum on or before Spring 16 to get 9 free Cauliflower Seeds.
The rewards for reaching 5 and 10 donations are Cauliflower (9) and Melon (9) Seeds for Spring and Summer, respectively.
See also: First Spring Mining tips at the bottom of this article.
While you can't mine yet, you can prepare now. What you really want on your farm are sprinklers so your fields can grow beyond your ability to water and so you can just relax between planting and harvest. And the way to get sprinklers is to descend into the mines as quickly as possible to floor 80 (or 90 for a special sword) to unlock the elevator to the floors that have the ore you want and the armor and weapons that make mining ore and coal easy. Clearing 100 farm rocks (Mining skill level 1) will unlock a recipe for cherry bombs for The Mines, and 380 farm rocks (Mining skill level 2) will unlock a Staircase recipe for The Mines. Clearing your entire farm of small rocks will get you to level 2 and will build up coal, copper, and stone for your rapid descent. Beyond enough wood for two chests (one near home and one at the mines), use your energy to clear every small rock from your farm.
Fishing
As soon as you reach Fishing level 2, buy a Fiberglass Rod and start using Bait to speed up your fishing income.
There are no fish unique to Spring for the Community Center or loved gifts, so you have a couple of months to save one Sunfish and as much time as you want to save examples of the other 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, CC completion, and villager gifts.
Spring 4
Today is a good day to forage thoroughly again for wild plants and start saving some of them. Here's how to use the wild plants you find:
Spring Onion: food as needed
Leek and Dandelion: food as needed and Community Center Crafts Room "Spring Foraging Bundle". Save some for gifts.
Wild Horseradish: money or food as needed and Community Center Crafts Room "Spring Foraging Bundle". Save some for gifts.
Daffodil: money as needed and Community Center Crafts Room "Spring Foraging Bundle". Save some for gifts.
There is a very helpful Community Center checklist tool you may want to start using at stardewcommunitychecklist.com.
Keep using your hoe on Artifact Spots around your farm and the valley. And keep all Geodes as you clear every small rock from your farm. You want to donate 5 items to the Museum on or before Spring 16 to get free Cauliflower Seeds.
If you've cleared your farm of rocks, now would be a good time to plan and start planting a double-spaced Oak tree farm on your farm. Or plant them on the beach or anywhere else. You collect seeds by chopping tree tops or fallen seeds.
Spring 5
Skill upgrade alert: Today is your first harvest. Hopefully that will unlock recipes tomorrow for a Scarecrow (from 20 fiber, 50 wood, and 1 coal) and some Fertilizer. Make sure you have room for them and all the seeds you will be able to afford. Plant 1 Potato and 12 Kale to have 15 crops growing tonight. Then wait until tomorrow (last day for planting Kale/Potato to beat the Egg Festival) to plant additional Kale with fertilizer and crow protection.
Birthdays alert: Save one of your new Parsnips for Mayor Lewis's birthday on Spring 7. And young Vincent would like a Daffodil for his on Spring 10. Mark the dates! Note that gold star quality always impresses people most on birthdays.
You’ll get a notice that the path to a mine is open today, and that’s good since the ore you find there is necessary to upgrade your tools and is all you need to build basic and Quality sprinklers if you are tired of watering. Meanwhile, if you keep your field small by stepping methodically to Strawberries, you will have time to fish, mine, and follow the Stardew Valley story. When you reach Mining skill level 2 (by clearing your farm of all small rocks) and have lots of food (forage, fish, or Salad from the Saloon), read Stardew Valley/Mining especially about ladders, then grab your pickaxe, hoe, fishing pole (just in case), stone, copper, coal except one for a scarecrow, food, and a new chest and go early in the day out your north exit to The Mines in the northeast corner of the valley. Once inside The Mines, put your chest by the elevator and leave everything but sword, pickaxe, coal, copper, stone, and food. Now start your first day of mining in rapid descent mode! You can take time to break any crates and barrels or convenient shiny rocks and still make 5 floors today using rapid descent strategies if you start early enough. For the rest of the month, use any long good luck days starting mid morning and rapid descent strategies to unlock 5 or 10 floors in a day.
See also: First Spring Mining tips at the bottom of this article.
Today your first Parsnips will be ready to harvest. Equip your scythe for safety and harvest them. If you planted more than 15 crops, you have been losing crops to crows, but you need to get Kale/Potatoes harvested by Spring 12, a day before the Egg Festival. They take 6 days, and you have 7 days. So plant some today to have 15 crops overnight and the rest tomorrow for full scarecrow protection and maybe some fertilizer.
If you are tight on gold, toss all Parsnips but two (for Lewis and the Spring Crops bundle) in the shipping bin and go to The Mines or fishing. You will get the Parsnip money tomorrow morning. Or take your Parsnips tomorrow to Pierre’s and sell all but the two to Pierre. However you get the money (fish, forage, Parsnips), buy all the expensive 6-day crops you can afford (up to 80) to plant tomorrow.
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 safe location near the Saloon and hand out gifts on Fridays after 5pm and evenings. After you've gifted a bit, check the social (heart) tab on your menu to remember which of your gifts were really liked.
Spring 6
Farming and Museum
Harvest
Craft a scarecrow and all the fertilizer you can. Place them.
Consider visiting the Blacksmith and Museum today as described in this spoiler (not necessary)
Spoiler
You could use the trip to town to take anything you have for Clint and Gunther (you can do this anytime up to Spring 16)
Possibly take a Chest to put at a safe location outside the Blacksmith
If you don't have a Chest for the Blacksmith, drop off whatever you have for Gunther to make room in your backpack then return to the Museum after the Blacksmith.
Get your geodes smashed by Clint at the Blacksmith. Then go to the Museum if you have donations. Count your donations. If there are already 5 or as soon as there are, collect a reward of free Cauliflower seeds to plant between Spring 13 and Spring 16. Save to grow alongside your Strawberries after your Spring 6 expensive 6-day crops are harvested (there is only time for one full Cauliflower harvest either way, so there is no rush).
Go to town at 8:30 with nothing in your backpack except:
All your Parsnips but two (Lewis and Spring Crops Bundle)
Possibly your stuff for the Blacksmith and Museum
At Pierre's store, check your Journal (exclamation mark under your screen clock) and collect any gold you have coming to you for completing Story Quests so far.
Buy, plant, and water expensive 6-day seeds (Kale) for a total of 40-80 to beat the Egg Festival. If you are making good money with fishing, you don't really need the money. But you need the farming experience.
Community Center
Today if it's not raining (if it is raining, go tomorrow) and you go to town between 8am and 1pm, a core important part of the Stardew Valley story will begin: The Community Center.
Spoiler
Today if it's not raining (if it is raining, go tomorrow) and you go to town between 8am and 1pm, Lewis will tell you about the Community Center. When he does, take the time immediately to go in the Community Center and interact with the floor slab in the southwest part of the building. Tomorrow the Wizard may invite you to see him about it all. When he does, take the time to do it so you can start getting prizes for donating. The prizes will make a difference to you at this early stage. Here are the things you can start saving now to get a few prizes right away.
1. There is a Pantry "Spring Crops Bundle" of donations to complete at the Community Centre. These things are only farmable this month. And if you donate them all, you will get a helpful prize now. Be aware of the time it takes to grow them. One strategy lets you harvest all four to complete this bundle in time to put the prize on your strawberries for an extra harvest this month.
1 Parsnip: 4 days
1 Green Bean: 10 days for first harvest
1 Cauliflower: 12 days
1 Potato: 6 days
2. There is a Crafts Room "Spring Foraging Bundle" at the Community Centre also. These things are only forageable this month. And if you donate them all, you will get a helpful prize now.
1 Leek
1 Dandelion
1 Wild Horseradish
1 Daffodil
3. There is a Community Center Pantry "Quality Crops Bundle" you can't complete now. It requires 5 gold star examples of three of the following: Parsnip, Corn, Melon, or Pumpkin. If you save 5 gold star Parsnips, you can complete the three next month with Corn and Melon. So as you get gold star Parsnips, save five for this bundle and at least 2 for birthday gifts (Lewis and Pam).
It may be worthwhile to put a chest in your house now for your Community Center, Birthday, Luau (see Spring 14 section), and Fair (see Spring 14 section) items. And soon you may want to categorize your chests further to help you reserve the right things.
Foraging
This week's wild plants are wiped out tonight, so today would be a good day for foraging (looking to save five Daffodil and one each Leek, Dandelion, and Wild Horseradish) and socializing. Four of the saved Daffodils are for the birthdays this month shown on the appropriate dates below, so gold star would be good.
Spring 7
Don't miss Lewis's birthday today. He would like a Parsnip.
Visit the Wizard if he invites you. Then donate to the Spring Foraging Bundle when you have all four. You will receive a reward of Spring Seeds. Spring Seeds are also known as the Spring version of Wild Seeds (Wild Seeds (Sp)). They are not the same as the Mixed Seeds you get from chopping weeds. Mixed Seeds grow into random farm crops with a few failures. Spring Wild Seeds grow into Leeks, Dandelions, Wild Horseradish, and Daffodils as crops on your farm. That said, it saves more energy and gives you up-front money for Strawberries if you sell the seeds immediately.
Save 4000gp for 40 Strawberries at the Egg Festival. Some people even wait to upgrade their backpack until they get their Strawberry seeds. Chests at safe locations near the Mines, Blacksmith, Saloon, and your fishing spot(s) can get you by with your small backpack. Keep an extra chest with you everywhere you go.
Spring 10
Young Vincent would like a Daffodil for his birthday today. The official Wiki can tell you where to find him if he isn't at school in the Museum/Library/School.
Today would not be a bad day to make a wild plants round unless you'd rather wait until Friday.
Keep saving for Strawberries.
Spring 10–12
Get ready to spend 4000gp on Strawberry at the Egg Festival on Spring 13. Sell all your harvests except 1 Potato, Green Bean, and Parsnip (lone Cauliflower harvest coming on Saturday morning) for the Community Centre Spring Crops Bundle. Buy and plant seeds for 8-16 Parsnips on fertilizer to try repeatedly for five gold star through the 24th. Depending on your Farming skill level, around 1/4 of your fertilized crops will be gold star, and that will increase through the end of the month.
Make a wild plants round by Friday if you want. Save one of everything and a gold star Daffodil for Haley (Spring 14) and maybe Emily (27) and a gold star Dandelion for Pierre (26).
Friday night is a good time to catch many of the villagers at the Saloon after 5pm.
Spring 13
Egg Festival!
1. BEFORE you go, harvest your lone Cauliflower, water your few crops that may be in the ground, and prepare and water spaces for about 40+ Strawberries (be careful about your time and energy commitment) at 100 gold each. Make sure you have complete Scarecrow coverage.
2. At the festival, buy Strawberry seeds BEFORE you start the egg hunt.
3. When you get back home at 10pm, take the Spring crops bundle to the Community Center and get your Speed Gro reward. Then apply the Speed Gro and plant ALL the Strawberry seeds in the prepared and watered spaces. Do not keep any Strawberry seeds. Plant them. Now is when you need the money most. Next year you can buy plenty when you are rich. See also the Spring 23–28 section.
End of Spring
Spring 14–16
Birthday alert: Haley (Spring 14) would like a gold star Daffodil on her birthday.
As soon as you can afford them (from fishing, foraging, and mining income), plant
8 to 16 Parsnips in fertilizer and repeat through Spring 24 until you get 5 gold star for the CC Quality Crops bundle or more for gifts (cheap, widely liked, and loved by Pam)
At least potato or a couple more for Help Wanted quests and future cooking
A few Tulips for gifts (widely liked; loved by Evelyn)
Cauliflower season: Cauliflower is the next most expensive (energy-saving) crop available to you right now, and you can use two gold star ones to show off at the Luau and the Fair. These three days are good for planting about 10 Cauliflower as you can afford (see Museum reward freebie).
Festival and Friendship Alert: There is a Luau on Summer 11 where you can win friendship with every villager by putting a gold star Cauliflower in the soup. This potential friendship boost is unique among all the festivals. So plant whatever Cauliflower you can afford these three days now and save the best Cauliflower you get for the Luau.
Museum reward and cauliflower deadline: Gather your geodes, artifacts, and minerals as soon as you finish watering on or before Spring 16 and take them to the blacksmith (closes at 4pm) and the museum to see if you can reach 5 donations to the museum and get Cauliflower seeds as a reward. It's worthless to plant them after Spring 16, and a day of padding doesn't hurt.
Future gifting: Since gifting is one way you level up crafting, it's a good idea now to plant and save certain villager-loved things that are unique to Spring (or just wait until next year to be sociable).
Spoiler
You should save at least a couple of each of these for when you get a Seed Maker and a Greenhouse.
A dozen or so Strawberry (Maru and Demetrius), Cauliflower (Maru), Leek (George), Wild Horseradish (Krobus? Not needed until next Spring?), Parsnip (Pam), Daffodil (Sandy? Not needed until next Spring?), and Tulip (Evelyn) should be enough for you to give until you find other loved gifts. And if you save a few Potato, Kale, and Green Bean, you may be able to cook some villager-loved food before next Spring (or just wait until then).
Spring 17–21
Birthday alert: Pam (Spring 18) would LOVE a gold star Parsnip on her birthday. Gold star is always best, of course! Shane (Spring 20) would LOVE Pizza or Beer from the Saloon on his birthday.
If you are aggressive for a Greenhouse, consider whether or not to plant Orange and Peach saplings at least a few days before the end of the month/season. (This is a controversial and big decision; search Fruit Bats at the end of this article.)
Now you can upgrade your backpack if you haven't yet.
Keep planting what has time to grow as harvests come in.
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 your Oak orchards on and off the farm (Beach?). You can also cut all those stumps you left now.
Make a wild plants round by Saturday for birthday Daffodils etc.
Spring 21
Last day to plant Blue Jazz if you want to. Not important.
Spring 22
Last day to plant Kale/Potatoes/Tulips. Don't plant any more crops this month unless you still don't have 5 gold star Parsnips.
Spring 23–28
Birthday alert: Pierre (Spring 26) would like any of your vegetables or a Dandelion on his birthday. Emily (Spring 27) would like a Daffodil or LOVE an Emerald, Aquamarine, Ruby, Amethyst, Topaz, or Jade on her birthday. Gold star is always best!
This week is your last chance of the year to plant Orange and Peach saplings for at least a small summer harvest.
Spring 24 is your last chance to try for your last gold star Parsnip(s).
Spring 26 (Friday) is the best day for a wild plants round if you need birthday Daffodils or want to upgrade what you have to gold star to impress more. You can find many villagers in the Saloon after 5pm.
Do not keep more Strawberries than you need for future gifting (LOVED options for Demetrius and Maru; and possibly one as long-term seed for a possible Greenhouse project). Process (Jelly or Wine) and sell them. Now is when you need the money most. Next year you can buy plenty when you are rich if you don't find something better.
As soon as you reach The Mines floor 80, you can get enough Gold Ore for Quality Sprinklers on floors 81+ and relax your rapid descent push for a bit. Keep Furnaces in operation near you 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). If you are not to floor 80, 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.
Time and energy management
A good routine
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 mining another 5 floors down, and if it's not so good, go fishing, foraging, exploring, and socializing.
Leisure seeds
As you approach the point where you’re using too much time and energy watering your plants (probably at your first harvest), it’s time to move to more expensive seeds. Cheap seeds build your wealth fastest, but planting more seeds than you can water will just prevent you from getting important experience fishing, mining, foraging, and socializing. See if you can plant more expensive seeds instead; in general the more expensive seeds save you time and energy. That's why this walkthrough steps you from Parsnips to Potatoes to Strawberries in the first two weeks.
Limited fields
Limit the size of your fields carefully.
Even if you want to stay on your farm and have the biggest field possible, you will want to move beyond your basic watering can, and to do that, you have to explore the rest of Stardew Valley a little. So even if you love spending your days watering, it's a good rule of thumb to be able to finish watering your field by 2pm. That will allow you time on days when you need to harvest and replant or make a pre-rain upgrade trip to the blacksmith who closes at 4pm. But ...
This walkthrough helps you finish your watering mid-morning to give you time to mine copper, iron, and beyond for tappers, sprinklers, and tool upgrades or to fish 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.
Don't sell/ship everything; start organizing
As you get richer, but before Spring has ended, make sure you've kept a few things for gifts, 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. By the end of the month, have up to a dozen of everything but Blue Jazz (see Future gifting under the Spring 14–16 section)
In your Community Center chest, keep one example of each item of Spring Forage, and one of each item of Spring Crops to complete the first two Community Centre bundles. And if you want to put 5 gold parsnips (instead of waiting until you are richer to get gold corn, melons, and pumpkins instead) in the Quality Produce bundle you also need to set them aside in the chest.
In your Fair chest, keep a gold star example of the most valuable items you want to show off at the fair grange display in the Fall. Showing off at the fair is fun and optional (There is something special to buy at the fair, but maximizing your grange display is not the only way to get the tickets to buy it).
Special tips for Spring only
Manage your bedtime. See Spoiler about sleep and energy under #Clear your farm at the end of Day 1. Keep your pockets empty throughout the month (by selling only when you need money) in case you fall asleep since you get taxed 10% (1000gp max fee) for the service call based on your cash on hand.
Don't clear-cut your farm trees or grass beyond the area(s) needed. If you just thin your trees, they will reseed around themselves. Clear them when there are a few young trees around them.
Pick up the brown seeds lying around your farm using your axe, pick, or hoe and plant them elsewhere.
Clear your weeds, rocks, and logs mercilessly to make way for trees and grass.
You can plant trees (but not crops) all over the valley, even on the beach.
Forage
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 vanish every night—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 6 per location until Saturday night. Then they reset on Sunday. This means that you are best advised to forage on Saturday plus possibly around Wednesday 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 or gift Wild Horseradish, and gift, save, or sell Daffodils. See gifting spoiler in Day 1 foraging and socializing section.
Calendar
Plan to buy and plant Strawberries on Spring 12 at the Egg Festival since they are the most energy-saving crop you can buy right now. Pierre will sell Strawberry seeds at 100gp each that are great for income and experience. (Ignore the fun Rarecrow. You can get the Rarecrow next year for fun when you have lots of cash.) Right now you need income and experience more than you ever will again, so grow and sell them and save one Strawberry in case you want use a Seedmaker before the next Egg Festival to start a Strawberry crop in your Greenhouse.
After Spring 15th you need to stop and think before planting, or preferably before buying seeds. Have you got enough time for these seeds to grow? If the packet says (in mouseover text) 12 days, that really means 12 nights, so Cauliflower should be planted by the 16th (17th with Speedgro, which you might get from a Community Centre bundle) to be harvested on the 28th. You can plant parsnips as late as the 24th.
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 by Spring 5 if you can afford the energy to collect 300 wood, especially if you are fishing at the ocean often, can help you build up to 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.
Mining
See the Mining article. Leeks are the most dense Spring food forage, and Kale is the most dense Spring food crop. You can also buy Salad from the Saloon if needed.
Fishing
See the Fishing article. It's common to find fishing frustratingly hard for a new farmer and player, even with the Training Rod. Use the tips at the Fishing article to level up your character's skill. If even that fails, you may want to start by fishing even for trash for hours in your own pond. Once you have any personal and farmer skill at all, and are able to put bait on your upgraded pole to keep the fish biting, maybe you will even start to like fishing!
End of Spring
At the end of Spring, if you have planned well, you will have some sprinkled crops and good money coming in, hopefully enough money to buy a nice fat heap of Summer seeds, to upgrade your backpack and some tools or a Silo. Demetrius may come by with a controversial and big decision; search Fruit Bats at the end of this article.
You could chop down all your plants on the 28th, but it’s far less work to take a scythe to the dead remains on the first day of Summer; you don’t have to re-hoe any soil after that.
Late Spring or after
Once you have some copper to spare, craft three Tappers and put them on one each of the three different types of trees. Choose trees you will often pass near, so that you notice when the sap is ready. Synchronize other tappers on and off your farm with these and use these as indicators, always harvesting them last. (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!
A silo and a Coop are nice additions to your farm if you are doing well enough to afford them (and the chickens) by the end of Spring, but otherwise you can probably invest in animals after you’ve got some Summer harvest in. Mayonnaise sells for a lot more than eggs do, so craft one or more Mayonnaise machines once your hens start laying.
Carry your scythe when walking across the farm, and swing it just once every few steps through grass, to cut some but not all of the grass and fill your Silo with hay.
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!
Alternatively, there’s no benefit to watering your crops on the 28th, unless you have a Coffee Bean somehow. So if you can spare the Copper and the cash, you can take your watering can to Clint’s on the 27th.
If you have focused on mining, you probably will have plenty of copper and iron to make a dozen basic sprinklers before the end of the month and before you ever upgrade your watering can. Basic sprinklers cut your watering in half and free you to expand your farm more. Sprinklers and watering can upgrades don't work particularly well together.
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
Erratic delivery, but they last a month, so you don't have to check often
Erratic range and number of fruits and berries, from forage like Salmonberries (5gp) to tree fruit like Pomegranates (140g)
Enable community center completion without planting fruit trees
Mushrooms
Regular delivery of six mushrooms every other day, but they don't accumulate, so you must harvest every other day
Erratic range (mostly Commons), but generally worth more than the range of fruits
Enable community center completion without going deep into the Mines.
Neither choice is worth significant money after a while. So it boils down to frequency and whether you'd rather avoid fruit trees or mining. If you choose mushrooms and feel aggressive about an early greenhouse, you'll need to plant Orange and Peach early in the last week so they can fruit late in the Summer (and plant the Apple and Pomegranate by mid Summer to fruit in the late Fall). If you are tight on money, there is always next year, or you can choose fruit bats and go mining for Community Center mushrooms.
