Stardew Valley - Seeds

Seeds, starters and saplings are what goes into the ground. Pierre sells most of them by the season, JojaMart undercuts him on a few, and the rarest arrive through the Traveling Cart, the Oasis and the island.

Overview

Seeds are the branch a farm spends its money on. Everything else earns, and this is the one shelf that costs, so the difference between a farm that turns a profit in its first Summer and one that does not usually comes down to where the seeds were bought and when. The branch is wider than a seed packet, too: it holds the saplings that become fruit trees, the nuts and cones that become ordinary trees, the starters that lay grass, and a set of strange packets that exist outside the shops altogether.

Three questions decide everything here: which counter stocks the packet, because the same seed costs different amounts in town, in the desert and off a waggon; when the stock appears, since some packets are locked behind a second year and some behind a single festival; and whether the seed needs buying at all, because a Seed Maker turns last month's harvest into next month's planting.

Groups

The main body of the branch is the ordinary seed packet, one per crop, sorted by the month it belongs to. Those are the shop stock, and they are the only part of the branch a farm buys by the hundred.

Saplings are the expensive outlier. One fruit tree sapling costs as much as a small field of vegetables and takes four weeks of standing still before it pays anything, which makes them a purchase for a farm that already has money rather than a way of making it.

Tree seeds are the free family: acorns, maple seeds, pine cones, mahogany seeds, mossy seeds and the mystic seed earned from foraging mastery. They come from shaking and felling trees rather than from a counter. The two grass starters sit nearby, laying a patch that spreads on its own and fills a silo when cut with a scythe.

Wild seeds are the four crafted packets, one per season, grown from forage and producing forage. They behave unlike anything else in the branch, because the quality of what comes up follows foraging skill rather than farming skill.

The last group is the specials: Mixed Seeds, the ancient packet, the Rare Seed, the Tea Sapling, the fibre packet, the Coffee Bean that is both seed and crop, and the bean that appears only while one of Mr. Qi's errands is running.

Order

Pierre's counter is where a farm starts and where it stays for most of a first year. The shelf changes with the month, so a seed missed is a seed waiting a full year, and three packets are held back until a second year regardless of how well the farm is doing. The shop also keeps the door shut on Wednesdays until the Community Center is finished or the town key is in hand.

JojaMart is the alternative and a worse one at first, because its prices run higher on every seed but one. What it sells instead is convenience, staying open late and opening on Wednesdays, and a membership levels the prices at the cost of the Community Center.

The desert opens the second tier. The Oasis stocks four packets town never sees, and two of them matter a great deal: the beet seed is the cheapest margin in the game, and the starfruit seed is the entry to the valley's best Summer money.

Ginger Island is the last tier and it trades rather than sells. The bluebird on the north shore takes bone fragments for taro, a Magma Cap for pineapple, a stingray for a Mahogany Seed and a pile of mussels or dragon teeth for the tropical saplings, which turns a fishing habit into a seed supply with no gold involved.

Running alongside all of it is the waggon in the forest, which turns up twice a week with ten random items. It is the only seller of the Rare Seed in any quantity, and the one shop that carries out-of-season packets.

Best

Measured by what a packet returns against what it costs, the beet seed from the Oasis is the best buy in the valley and nothing else is close. Starfruit is the best absolute earner a farm can buy, and the Rare Seed sold off the waggon beats even that, though it is a gamble on the waggon appearing with one.

For a first Spring the strawberry packet from the Egg Festival is the right answer, because it is the only cheap seed that keeps producing all season and the festival is the only place it is sold for gold. Anything left unspent that morning is money wasted, since the stall is gone the next day.

Among the free seeds, Mixed Seeds deserve more respect than they get. A handful cut out of the weeds becomes a crop of the current season at no cost, and in a first Fall they are the only route to the artichoke a farm cannot yet buy.

Locations

Away from the counters, seeds turn up in a surprising number of places. The ground itself is one, since a hoe swung on the right patch opens a Seed Spot, and those hold the packets no shop stocks. Golden treasure chests pulled up while fishing carry the same set, mystery boxes hold them, and the crates in the mines, the desert cavern and the volcano produce them occasionally.

The raccoon family in the forest stump is the steadiest source of the newer packets, handing over a batch for each request filled and then swapping tree seeds for them at a fixed rate.

A few seeds have one route and no other. The Tea Sapling arrives as a recipe in the post after Caroline's second scene, the fibre packet comes from Linus after a town clean-up, the ancient packet begins with an artifact handed to Gunther, and the Mushroom Tree Seed is bought with gems in Mr. Qi's room.

Prices

Town is the baseline, Joja is dearer, the desert is cheaper on its own four packets, and the waggon is wildly variable, usually running well above the shop and occasionally landing below it.

Two shop quirks are worth money. Returning Pierre's lost stocklist makes him sell every season's seeds all year, with a surcharge on anything out of season, which removes the whole problem of a missed month for any farm with a greenhouse. And one packet is genuinely cheaper at Joja than at Pierre's, which is the single exception to the price gap between them.

Saplings are the one line where the waggon can beat the shop by a wide margin, so a farm planning an orchard should look before paying Pierre.

Strategy

Build the Seed Maker as soon as farming skill allows it, then point it at the expensive seeds only. Pushing cheap vegetables through it saves very little, since roughly half a harvest has to be sacrificed to keep a field self-sufficient, while pushing starfruit, Ancient Fruit or a Sweet Gem Berry through it saves a fortune.

Keep one packet of everything in a chest the moment it is bought. The Junimos ask for seasonal produce and the neighbours write letters asking for a particular crop, and both are easier to answer from a spare packet than from a shop that stopped stocking it.

Shop on the last afternoon of a month, buying the next month's seeds before the fields are even cleared. That single trip removes most of the risk the closures create.

Notes

The four crafted wild packets are the one part of the branch that crows ignore, which saves a scarecrow on any patch given over to them. The fibre packet grows through Winter without watering, which makes it the usual choice for holding fertiliser and tilled soil across the turn of the year.

Mixed seeds decide what they are at the moment they go into the ground rather than when they are picked up, so a packet gathered in Spring and saved until Fall becomes a Fall crop. Inside a Garden Pot or the greenhouse in Winter, they can turn into a crop from any season at all.

The bean from Mr. Qi's errand exists only while the errand does. Every one of them, planted or in a chest, vanishes the day after the job closes.

All Seeds

Every entry in this group, with its key details.

Name	Image	Grows	Season	Pierre
Acorn		Oak Tree	All	-
Amaranth Seeds		Amaranth	Fall	70g
Ancient Seeds		Ancient Fruit	Spring; Summer; Fall	-
Apple Sapling		Apple	Fall	4,000g
Apricot Sapling		Apricot	Spring	2,000g
Artichoke Seeds		Artichoke	Fall	30g (Year 2+)
Banana Sapling		Banana	All on Ginger Island; Summer in Stardew Valley	-
Bean Starter		Green Bean	Spring	60g
Beet Seeds		Beet	Fall	-
Blue Grass Starter		Blue Grass	Spring; Summer; Fall	-
Blueberry Seeds		Blueberry	Summer	80g
Bok Choy Seeds		Bok Choy	Fall	50g
Broccoli Seeds		Broccoli	Fall	-
Cactus Seeds		Cactus Fruit	All	-
Carrot Seeds		Carrot	Spring	-
Cauliflower Seeds		Cauliflower	Spring	80g
Cherry Sapling		Cherry	Spring	3,400g
Coffee Bean		-	Spring; Summer	-
Corn Seeds		Corn	Summer; Fall	150g
Cranberry Seeds		Cranberries	Fall	240g
Eggplant Seeds		Eggplant	Fall	20g
Fairy Seeds		Fairy Rose	Fall	200g
Fall Seeds		Blackberry, Common Mushroom, Hazelnut, or Wild Plum	Fall	-
Fiber Seeds		Fiber	All	-
Garlic Seeds		Garlic	Spring	40g (Year 2+)
Grape Starter		Grape	Fall	60g
Grass Starter		Grass	Spring; Summer; Fall	100g
Hops Starter		Hops	Summer	60g
Jazz Seeds		Blue Jazz	Spring	30g
Kale Seeds		Kale	Spring	70g
Mahogany Seed		Mahogany Tree	All	-
Mango Sapling		Mango	All on Ginger Island; Summer in Stardew Valley	-
Maple Seed		Maple Tree	All	-
Melon Seeds		Melon	Summer	80g
Mixed Flower Seeds		Varies	Spring Summer Fall	-
Mixed Seeds		Varies	Spring Summer Fall	-
Mossy Seed		Green Rain Tree	All	-
Mushroom Tree Seed		Mushroom Tree	All	-
Mystic Tree Seed		Mystic Tree	All	-
Orange Sapling		Orange	Summer	4,000g
Parsnip Seeds		Parsnip	Spring	20g
Peach Sapling		Peach	Summer	6,000g
Pepper Seeds		Hot Pepper	Summer	40g
Pine Cone		Pine Tree	All	-
Pineapple Seeds		Pineapple	All on Ginger Island; Summer in Stardew Valley	-
Pomegranate Sapling		Pomegranate	Fall	6,000g
Poppy Seeds		Poppy	Summer	100g
Potato Seeds		Potato	Spring	50g
Powdermelon Seeds		Powdermelon	Winter	-
Pumpkin Seeds		Pumpkin	Fall	100g
Qi Bean		Qi Fruit	All	-
Radish Seeds		Radish	Summer	40g
Rare Seed		Sweet Gem Berry	Fall	-
Red Cabbage Seeds		Red Cabbage	Summer	100g (Year 2+)
Rhubarb Seeds		Rhubarb	Spring	-
Rice Shoot		Unmilled Rice	Spring	40g
Spangle Seeds		Summer Spangle	Summer	50g
Spring Seeds		Wild Horseradish, Daffodil,; Leek, or Dandelion	Spring	-
Starfruit Seeds		Starfruit	Summer	-
Strawberry Seeds		Strawberry	Spring	-
Summer Seeds		Grape, Spice Berry,; or Sweet Pea	Summer	-
Summer Squash Seeds		Summer Squash	Summer	-
Sunflower Seeds		Sunflower	Summer; Fall	200g
Taro Tuber		Taro Root	All on Ginger Island; Summer in Stardew Valley	-
Tea Sapling		Tea Leaves	All	-
Tomato Seeds		Tomato	Summer	50g
Tulip Bulb		Tulip	Spring	20g
Wheat Seeds		Wheat	Summer; Fall	10g
Winter Seeds		Crocus, Crystal Fruit,; Snow Yam, or Winter Root	Winter	-
Yam Seeds		Yam	Fall	60g