Winter Seeds

Winter Seeds

Type	Seed
Grows	Crocus, Crystal Fruit,; Snow Yam, or Winter Root
Produces	10 Winter Seeds per craft
Season	Winter
Growth Time	7 days
Cart	100 to 1,000g
Sell Price	30g

Winter Seeds are what make frozen ground worth hoeing at all. The recipe is the last of the four wild seed mixes to open, waiting at the seventh level of Foraging, and one craft turns a Crocus, a Crystal Fruit, a Snow Yam and a Winter Root into ten seeds that grow those same four items back at random. Quality here comes off the Foraging skill rather than Farming, so a forager holding Botanist pulls iridium produce out of the one season when the fields are supposed to be shut. No crow will touch the bed either, which means no Scarecrow and no wasted ground. The one thing never to do with the packet is sell it, because ten seeds fetch less than the four items spent making them.

Growing

Seven days in two long stages, so the bed turns over three times across the season. Harvesting takes the plant away with it, and the empty tile has to be sown again.

Winter weather is no excuse to skip the watering. Snow settles on the field without wetting it, so the bed asks for the same morning round as a Summer crop, and a Sprinkler is as welcome here as anywhere else.

Nothing sown past the twenty-first will ripen before Spring arrives. A bed put in on the first is cut on the eighth, resown, cut on the fifteenth, resown and cut a final time on the twenty-second, which is three full rounds out of one patch of ground. Because each round is a fresh sowing, Speed-Gro helps all three of them rather than only the first.

Half grown, the row is the problem. At that stage the plants could pass for crops that died in the frost, and the resemblance costs people whole beds when they tidy up after a harvest. The ripe plants are unmistakable, so the rule is simply to leave the ground alone until they are.

Quality works unlike any shop crop. The Foraging skill decides how often silver, gold and iridium turn up, and the Botanist profession pins every single harvest at iridium. A Winter bed is therefore worth a great deal more to a forager than to a farmer, and the choice made at the top of the Foraging tree is what settles its value.

Nothing in the air threatens the plants, so the field can sit far from any Scarecrow and the protected ground can go to crops that actually need the cover. On a farm where space is the limit, that alone decides where the Winter bed goes.

Buying

No shop in the valley stocks Winter Seeds, so every route runs through foraging or through a trade.

Crafting is the base route, and the four ingredients are precisely what a walk in the snow turns up. Crocus and Crystal Fruit stand out in the open, while Snow Yam and Winter Root are pulled out of the ground with a hoe wherever the worms show. One craft gives ten seeds.

The Seed Maker cuts that list to a single item. A Winter Root dropped in on its own comes back as one to three seeds, so a bed renews itself out of its own harvest and the other three items can be shipped instead of crafted.

Handing in the Winter Foraging Bundle in the Crafts Room pays out thirty seeds, which is three rounds of a decent bed for nothing. The bundle asks for the same four items the recipe does, so anybody gathering for the Crafts Room is already halfway to a craft.

The Desert Trader barters on Saturdays and gives Winter Seeds for twice as many Spring Seeds, which is how a surplus of early forage becomes a Winter of planting. Treasure rooms on the deep floors of the Skull Cavern hold them in stacks, so a miner comes home with a bed's worth. The Traveling Cart carries them occasionally at a price well past what they are worth.

Uses

Selling the packet is the mistake to avoid. A craft of ten comes to less than the four forage items that went into it, so a Crystal Fruit is always better shipped as it is than turned into seed first.

Beyond the bed, the seeds are for tea. The Tea Sapling recipe asks for two wild seed packets next to its Fiber and Wood, so a single craft of ten is enough for a short tea hedge, and Winter is the season with time to spare for that kind of work.

The harvest counts towards the Winter Foraging Bundle exactly as hand-picked forage does, which makes a planted bed the dependable way to finish that line when the snow has buried everything else.

Working the bed also pours Foraging experience into a season that offers very little of it otherwise, which is how the seventh level turns into the tenth.

Notes

Gather a double set of all four items in the first Winter. One set completes the bundle and brings thirty seeds back, and the other becomes the first craft.

Take Botanist at the top of the Foraging tree before leaning on these beds. It is the difference between ordinary produce and iridium produce on every tile of the field.

The last useful sowing is the twenty-first. Anything put in later is still a stalk when Spring arrives and the ground is cleared under it.

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