With the Right Perks and the Right Plan, Your Farm Will be the Talk of the Town
If you haven’t played indie developer concernedape’s Stardew Valley fresh and free of spoilers, I’d recommend you do so before reading an article like this one. Once you’ve got the hang of the farming life though, your second (or third) farm has the potential to come out on top with just a few simple strategies.
1. Make Your Farm Self-Sustaining
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A savvy player making good use of his crab pots on the beach. In salt water, you get more valuable shellfish, such as lobster.
Most of what you need for your farm, you can make on site. Even rare materials like iridium can eventually be produced—with the right know-how.
Be creative in your self-sustaining strategies. In my latest run, I took the crabpots skill when I hit level 5 in fishing, cutting the materials needed to craft the pots. By making a ton of them for my farm, I have shellfish to craft quality fertilizer.
Recycling the trash caught in crabpots produces items such as refined quartz, which can be used to craft crystal floors and quality sprinklers.
2. Be Ready for Your Grandpa’s Return in Year 3
Grandpa’s ghost visits in your third year and slings judgment at your farm. If he thinks you’ve worked hard enough, he gives you a kitty statue that generates 2-8 iridium ore a day.
If you fail Grandpa’s first judgment, never fear! There’s a way to summon him for another round of otherworldly judgment.
3. Get 10 Hearts with Every Townsperson (even Marriage Candidates)
Once you have 10 hearts with a townsperson, your relationship is locked at max. But what about the marriage candidates? They are locked at 8 hearts, with the last two hearts only accessible if you successfully romance them.
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The advantage (I guess) of having Dr. Harvey as a husband is always having someone to care for you when you’re sick.
Give every marriage candidate one of Pierre’s bouquets, and those last two hearts will open up. Regardless of who you eventually choose to marry, you will forever remain at 10 hearts with all of your former lovers.
4. Save Your Iridium for Tool Upgrades, Buy an Iridium Sprinkler in the Sewer Every Friday
One of the most important parts of the game is having good sprinklers. Otherwise, most of your day and energy will be spent watering crops.
Therefore, you’ll want iridium sprinklers (waters 24 squares) as soon as you can get them. But iridium is rare and needed for tool upgrades.
Keep working on your museum collection, and Gunter will give you a rusty key you can use to pop down to the sewers. Meet your friend Krobus the Shadow Brute and buy an Iridium Sprinkler from him every Friday for 10k gold.
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Sure, you can buy iridium sprinklers from Krobus, but can you get him to be your friend? He loves pumpkins and void eggs.
5. Grow Ancient Fruit in your Greenhouse
The crop with the highest sale price in the game is ancient fruit, and if turned into jam and wine, it is even more profitable.
Unfortunately, the seeds are difficult to come by, and the plant takes an entire season to bear fruit. Then it dies in the winter and you have to start the process all over again.
If you get the forest spirits called Junimos to restore your greenhouse, though, you can grow the ancient fruit all year round. Use a seed maker machine on your first few rounds of the crop, and soon, you’ll be rolling in ancient fruit profits.
