Melon Seeds

Melon Seeds

Type	Seed
Grows	Melon
Season	Summer
Growth Time	12 days
Pierre	80g
JojaMart	100g
Cart	120 to 1,000g
Sell Price	40g

Melon Seeds are the summer purchase that pays for a block rather than a row. Nine melons grown in a square take a chance every night of fusing into one giant plant, and that plant drops far more fruit than the nine tiles ever held. The Museum gives nine seeds away after ten donations, which is exactly the shape the mechanic wants. Melon is then wanted twice by the Community Center, once as plain fruit for the Summer Crops Bundle and again as five gold-quality fruit for the Quality Crops Bundle, so one well-fertilised bed settles both. Twelve days is a long commitment for a single cutting, which makes the sowing date the one thing to get right.

The in-game description reads: Plant these in the summer. Takes 12 days to mature.

Growing

Melon takes twelve days of watering and is then cut once. Nothing regrows on the tile afterwards.

Twelve days sets a firm deadline. A seed sown on the sixteenth of Summer ripens on the final day of the season, and anything put in after that is lost when Fall arrives with the fruit still green. A late bed can be rescued with Deluxe Speed-Gro, which shortens the wait by enough to matter and is worth stockpiling before Summer starts.

Planting in a block rather than a line is what opens the giant crop up. Any three by three square of melon that is fully grown and watered takes its own small chance each night of collapsing into a single giant plant. A ripe bed left standing and watered therefore keeps rolling for as long as the season lasts, and the melons underneath stay perfectly good to cut if the fusion never comes. Breaking a giant plant open needs an Axe and three blows, and the heap of fruit it leaves is worth a great deal more than the square it replaced.

Gunther's second seed reward lines up neatly with that. It lands at ten donations and arrives as nine Melon Seeds, which is one square exactly and one square more than most first Summers could otherwise afford.

Quality fertiliser deserves a bed of its own here. Melon gives a single fruit per plant, so every fruit can carry a grade, and the Quality Crops Bundle wants five of them at gold. One bed laid with good fertiliser and cut in Summer clears a bundle that otherwise drags on for years.

Under Greenhouse glass and on the Ginger Island farm the deadline disappears, and a melon bed can be cut and sown again whenever the ground comes free.

Buying

Pierre's General Store stocks the packet through Summer at the lowest price in town. JojaMart asks more for the identical seed.

The Night Market puts summer seed on the beach in the depths of Winter. On the sixteenth the Magic Shop Boat carries Melon Seeds at the General Store figure, which is how a farm walks into Summer with the square already watered.

Gunther is cheaper than either of them, since his nine seeds cost nothing but the donations.

Deep in the Skull Cavern, treasure rooms give up melon seed by the handful, five to twenty in a single find. Mixed Seeds sown on the Ginger Island farm also come up as melon sometimes, which quietly adds plants to an island bed without a purchase.

Putting a single melon through a Seed Maker brings seed back, and with a packet this dear that trade is among the most profitable the machine makes in a year.

The Traveling Cart keeps melon in her rotation at a markup that only makes sense to a farm that missed the shop entirely.

Uses

Fermenting the fruit in a Keg produces wine worth several times the melon. A Preserves Jar makes jelly instead, worth less than the wine but finished in a fraction of the time. Either beats shipping the fruit raw, which is why a melon bed is usually the first thing a new keg row gets pointed at.

The Seed Maker runs the other way round: a cut melon goes in and fresh seed comes out.

A packet of seed makes a poor present, disliked by every villager who reacts to it at all.

Notes

Lay the bed as a rectangle rather than a single line. A giant crop needs a full square of nine, and a one-tile row can never produce one however far it runs.

Leave a ripe block standing and watered for a few days before cutting it. The fruit keeps perfectly well, and every extra night is another roll at the giant plant.

Sow the whole square on one morning. The square only counts once every melon in it has finished growing, so a staggered planting throws away nights that could have been rolls.

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