Stardew Valley tips for beginners: farming basics, romance, upgrades, and more

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After springing from the mind of Eric Barone (better known as ConcernedApe), Stardew Valley became a monumental success in 2016 and is still widely played to this day. Inspired by the beloved Harvest Moon series, Stardew Valley has you take over your late grandfather’s farm in Pelican Town. Along the way, you can start a family with one of the bachelors or bachelorettes, revitalize the community center, and turn your humble farm into a moneymaking machine.

Stardew Valley is a game where you can play for hundreds of hours and still not discover everything it has to offer, especially with the latest big 1.6 update. Beginners may find it daunting and not know where to start, so we’ll guide you along the way with the right tips and tricks on how to grow a successful farm and life in Pelican Town.

Farming crops

Your main source of income in Stardew Valley will inevitably be farming crops, and it will also be your first source. The way farming works is that you first till the soil with a Hoe, plant the seed into the soil, then water the plant with a Watering Can.

You must ensure that all of your crops are watered daily so they don’t wilt the next morning. If it rains one day, your crops will be watered for you so you can use stamina other ways on that day. Eventually, you’ll be able to make Sprinklers, which help with watering immensely, so build them as soon as possible. Overall, the best moneymaking crops are:

Spring: Strawberry, Potato, Cauliflower, Green Bean
Summer: Melon, Hops, Blueberry, Starfruit
Fall: Artichoke, Cranberry, Pumpkin, Yam

It’s also worth noting that not all crops can grow year-round. Each crop can be grown during certain times of the year, some during one month and others in two. Only some seeds are multiseasonal, such as the Ancient Seeds that produce Ancient Fruit all year round. Also, each crop takes a certain amount of days to grow, so keep that in mind when planting crops near the end of a season. If they don’t sprout in time, they’ll wilt in the next season and you’ll be out of that money.

Your main source of purchasing seeds is Pierre’s General Store. Some seeds will produce crops only once, and others will grow after a certain amount of days and stay there, growing more produce every few days after harvest. It’s also good to know that from spring to fall, crops can be grown outside, but in the winter, it’s impossible to farm unless you use a Greenhouse (one of the many Community Center upgrades).

Keeping your crops safe is important, so craft a Scarecrow as soon as possible. Crows will destroy your crops if they’re not kept in check. You should also keep Fertilizers in mind when you have the money or materials for them since they can increase the quality of your crops. Although you can purchase Fertilizer from Pierre, it’s easiest to craft Basic Fertilizer yourself using two Sap.

Animal care

Inside a chicken coop in Stardew Valley.

Having farm animals is another great way to earn money, as you can craft materials and cook ingredients you get from them. Although one of the farm types you can start with comes with a Coop, other farm types force you to save up the money and materials to build one yourself. The Coop can house Chickens, Ducks, and Rabbits, while the Barn holds Cows, Goats, Pigs, Sheep, and even Ostriches.

You can build your first animal building, most likely a Coop since it’s cheaper, at Robin’s Carpenter Shop. Once built, you can then speak to Marnie to the south of your farm to purchase animals. They’ll start off as babies, and eventually grow into adults that produce goods such as Eggs, Wool, Milk, Truffles, etc.

Keeping your animals happy is the key to good quality animal products. To make them happy, pet them every day, bring them outside on sunny days, but inside on rainy days, and feed them using Hay. You can acquire Hay by building a Silo (it requires Clay, which is annoying to get) to hold the Hay that you harvest after using your Scythe to clear away tall grass on your farm. Make sure to stock up on Hay before winter since new grass won’t grow after harvesting.

You’ll also have to keep your animals warm with a Heater during the winter, or else they won’t be happy (you can buy one from Marnie). Otherwise, you can breed animals instead of just buying them. For this to happen, you must upgrade your Coop or Barn to a Big version (through Robin).

Also, make sure that you have room for more babies to fit in your buildings, and that you have one male and female type of the same animal. Pregnancy is random, so you’ll just have to wait for it to happen. But in Coops, you can use the incubator to grow Chickens or Ducks.

Artisan Goods

You should also set up ways to create Artisan Goods on your farm. Different types of machines and objects can craft pricier goods that take time to make, but they use the items you already have on your farm. The only machine that does all the work for you is Bee Houses, which will produce Wild Honey every four days.

In addition to Bee Houses, processors like Casks can create Wine or Beer using fruit and Wheat, Kegs use fruits and vegetables to make a variety of beverages, and Preserves Jars turn vegetables into pickled goods and fruits into jams. The best goods to make for the most amount of gold would be Caviar, Wine, Pale Ale, and Dried Fruit.

Instead of just selling your animal products as is, you should turn them into better goods. Use the Cheese Press to make Cheese from Milk, the Mayonnaise Machine to make Mayonnaise using Eggs, an Oil Maker to make Truffle Oil using Truffles, and a Loom to turn Wool into Cloth.

We also recommend choosing the Mushroom cave instead of the Fruit Bats when given the choice from Demetrius after earning 25,000 gold. This way, you can turn mushrooms into Dried Mushrooms using a Dehydrator. You also receive a Dehydrator for free by choosing the mushroom cave, which is a bonus.

The last good production machine is the Fish Smoker, which makes, you guessed it, Smoked Fish. Once you learn how to fish, you’ll want to quickly bring them to the Community Center or sel; them. If you like to sell fish, putting them in the Fish Smoker doubles their selling price.

Gifts and romance

A wedding in Stardew Valley. The player characters is marrying Haley, who's in a bridal gown. They're standing underneath an arch with all the townsfolk watching.

Stardew Valley has a whole cast of characters willing to take your gifts, which will help grow your relationship with them. Only some of the residents are romanceable, but everyone is open to gifts. Just hold the item you want to give them and interact with them.

The person will react in a way to let you know if they liked or hated the item, as all residents have certain likes and dislikes. Reading our gift guide can help you figure out which villager likes what items, paving a quicker path to romance for you and one lucky suitor.

To start a romantic relationship with someone, you need to have a total of eight hearts with them, and you have to gift them a Bouquet (available at Pierre’s General Store). This will unlock the ninth and 10th hearts. Once you reach 10 hearts, you can gift them a Mermaid’s Pendant to start a marriage.

You can purchase this item from the Old Mariner for 5,000 gold, and it will appear on the beach in the area past the broken bridge that costs 300 wood to repair. He’ll also show up at the Night Market during the winter season.

Upon marrying your spouse, they will come live with you at your house. From there, their heart meter opens up to 14 hearts, and you can eventually have children with them. To have a child, upgrade your Farmhouse twice to receive the nursery and wait for your spouse to ask for a child. Once your child reaches the Toddler stage, the last stage of development, you can even try for a second.

Mining and combat

Fighting slimes in the mines of Stardew Valley.

You’ll often spend your days deep within the mines collecting ores, jewels, and monster drops after slaying dangerous creatures. On Spring 5 in your first year, you’ll unlock the Mines, which have a total of 120 floors. The deeper you go, the more dangerous the monsters become.

Starting from the first floor, mine all the rocks with your Pickaxe until a ladder appears to take you to the next level. You do this with every level unless you’ve crafted stairs that can take you down a floor. The mines can be broken down into four separate sections with unique themes.

The first section, floors 1-39, is where you can get Copper, Amethyst, Quartz, and Topaz and has an earthy theme. Floors 40-79 are frozen-themed and contain Iron Ore Aquaramines, Frozen Tears, and Jade, while Diamonds start to appear starting at floor 50. Finally, floors 80-120 are lava-themed and commonly have Gold, while also containing Rubies, Fire Quartz, and Emeralds.

Throughout all the levels you’ll have the chance to get Geodes from rocks; Normal Geodes in the first section, Frozen Geodes in the second, and Magma Geodes in the third. Once you’re out of the mines, take your Geodes to Clint at the Blacksmith to open them at the cost of 25 gold. We recommend you take every new mineral found to the Museum or Community Center, and then after that, you can start selling them.

Not only are you mining for items in the mines, but fighting off monsters as well. You’ll start with a Rusty Sword, but eventually, you can find or purchase better weapons. On every mining trip, keep any farming items at home and only bring essentials: a Pickaxe, a weapon, a few torches, and food for healing yourself. Upgrading your Combat skill is essential since you’ll start to unlock useful items like the Warrior Ring (increases your Attack) and Bug Steak (turns Bug Meat into food).

Community Center

Once you unlock the Community Center, you can start to put items in bundles to unlock essential rewards. There are two different routes you can take with the Community Center: Revitalizing it or turning it into a JojaMart. We highly recommend you avoid turning it into a JojaMart; it’s the worst route to take for Pelican Town.

Restoring the Community Center makes Pierre’s General Store stay open every day of the week (instead of closing every Wednesday), and going this route doesn’t make you betray the adorable Junimos who have worked hard to keep the building alive. If you do go the JojaMart route, all bundles can be unlocked using gold, but it’s not worth it.

Knowing which bundles to unlock first can be tricky, but here are arguably the most important donations to complete:

Pantry: The bundles in the Pantry room are crucial to unlock before your first winter. Once completed, you’ll unlock the Greenhouse so you can grow crops year-round.
Vault: After spending a total of 42,500 gold on unlocking these four bundles, you get the bus repaired, allowing you to take trips to Calico Desert.
Boiler Room: This room will grant you the ability to use minecarts to easily travel between a few notable locations across Pelican Town.

Multiplayer

Four Stardew Valley players riding horses in Winter.

The good news is that you don’t have to play Stardew Valley alone! You can start a co-op multiplayer farm with up to seven other friends online if you’re playing on PC or console. Unfortunately, the mobile version doesn’t support co-op. As a reminder, there is no cross-platform support, so you must play with friends who are on the same system as you.

From the main menu, select the Co-op option and then whoever wants to be the host can create a new game. In the character creation menu, you’ll be given the option on the left-hand side to add cabins to your farm. Put enough cabins for each player who will be on your game. If you want to start a co-op game on a single-player save file, you can still do that. Just construct a cabin through Robin’s Carpentry shop for 100 gold.

Mods

For those playing on a PC, downloading mods is an option if you’re finding that the normal gameplay is getting stale. Some of the best Stardew Valley mods are Stardew Valley Expanded, Lookup Anything, and NPC Map Locations, among many others.

But how can you play this farming simulator with mods? It’s easier than you think, but you’ll need to download something first:

Download the most recent version of SMAPI.
Once downloaded, extract the ZIP file.
Inside the file, open the installation file depending on your Operating System (Windows/Mac/Linux).
Follow the instructions given and wait for SMAPI to install in your Stardew Valley game.
Find the SMAPI launcher in your files (on Steam right-click Stardew Valley and select Browse local files), right-click, and select Create shortcut.

Now you can easily access your modded version of Stardew Valley as a separate launcher from your normal game. The best place to download mods is from NexusMods. Once you find the mods you want, you can place them in their designated mods folder in the same location as the SMAPI launcher (C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Stardew Valley/Mods).

Once you’ve unzipped the mod, drag and drop it into your mods folder and that’s all it takes. Whenever you load SMAPI, it’ll let you know if it cannot run a certain mod and it will also automatically update mods if it can find them.

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