Blue Grass Starter

Blue Grass Starter

Type	Seed
Grows	Blue Grass
Produces	1 Blue Grass Starter per craft
Season	Spring; Summer; Fall
Sell Price	50g

Blue Grass Starter is a crafted item that drops a clump of Blue Grass onto the ground the moment it is used. Blue Grass is the better feed in the game: a grazing animal warms to the farmer at double the usual rate, and a cut tile sends more hay into the Silo. Only the Meadowlands farm grows it by itself, so every other farm has to buy the recipe from Qi's Walnut Room and craft the starters by hand. The ingredients sit at the far end of the game, which makes this the grass upgrade a farm earns rather than the one it starts with. One starter is enough to seed a pasture, because the patch spreads on its own.

Growing

A Blue Grass Starter is placed rather than planted. There is no hoeing, no watering and no waiting for a sprout: the tile turns to Blue Grass at once. From there the clump creeps outward to the tiles around it, exactly as ordinary grass does, until it has covered whatever ground is open to it.

Spreading only works onto bare, tillable soil. A tile that already carries green farm grass will not be taken over, so a pasture that is meant to be blue is best cleared first, or the starters placed into open gaps and left to fill in from there.

Winter stops the spread entirely. A starter used in Winter still puts its clump on the ground, but nothing grows outward from it until Spring returns, so Winter placements are better thought of as preparation than progress. Cutting in Winter also returns far less, which is why hay goes into the Silo during Fall rather than in the cold.

The one exception is the Meadowlands farm, where Blue Grass is already growing on the first morning and comes back on its own through Spring, Summer and Fall. A farm of that type never needs a starter at all.

Buying

Nothing on a shop shelf sells a Blue Grass Starter. The only way in is the recipe, which Qi stocks in his Walnut Room on Ginger Island and sells for Qi Gems.

Reaching that counter is a chain of its own. Willy's boat has to be repaired to get to Ginger Island, a hundred Golden Walnuts have to be gathered to open the Walnut Room, and the gems themselves come from Qi's Special Orders, the Shrine of Challenge, or by trading walnuts across. None of that happens in a first year.

The ingredients are the second gate. Fiber is the easy part: weeds drop it half the time, Fiber Seeds grow it on purpose, and the Desert Trader will swap Stone for it. Moss comes off trees with green growth on their trunks through Spring, Summer and Fall, and a Green Rain day in Summer coats the whole valley in it, which is the moment to harvest in bulk. Mystic Syrup is the hard one. It calls for Foraging Mastery, then the Mystic Tree Seed recipe, then a Mystic Tree grown and fitted with a Tapper, which yields syrup roughly once a week. A farm that wants many starters needs several tapped trees running at once.

Because one starter spreads without help, the sensible plan is to craft a handful, scatter them across the pasture and let the patch do the rest.

Uses

Blue Grass is feed first. Animals turned out onto it build affection at double the rate of normal grass, which shortens the long climb towards better produce. Cutting a tile with a Scythe sends more hay to the Silo than an ordinary tile does, so the same pasture stocks the barn faster before Winter. A Silo has to be standing first, or cut grass simply vanishes.

The starter also works as a dye. In the spool of the Sewing Machine with a dyeable garment in the feed it gives blue, and it fills the blue pot at the dye vats in Emily and Haley's house at 2 Willow Lane.

As a present it is the worst kind of gift. Every villager with an opinion on it, from Marnie to the Wizard, hates being handed a clod of grass. It is also one of the more valuable things to sell over a counter, which is tempting but wasteful given what it costs to make.

Notes

Fence off one patch before the animals are let out. Grazing animals eat tufts faster than a young clump can spread, and a protected patch keeps spreading, ready to re-seed the rest of the pasture.

Gather moss during Green Rain and bank it. The syrup takes weeks to arrange, so the cheap moss should already be waiting when it is ready.

Tap more than one Mystic Tree. A single weekly syrup limits the whole farm to one starter a week, which is slow going for a large pasture.

All Seeds

Every entry in this group, with its key details.

Name	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