Stardew Valley Money Guide — Best Crops by Season (Year One)

A season-by-season planting order for a first-year farm that ends winter with real money in the box.

Spring: parsnip momentum, then cauliflower

Spring one starts you with 15 parsnip seeds and almost no capital — plant them all, sell everything, and buy potatoes as soon as you can afford them. The real spring money is strawberries at the Egg Festival on day 13: every gold piece you've scraped together (including fishing income) should become strawberry seeds, because they regrow every 4 days and still pay for themselves twice over before summer.

Summer: blueberries are the year-one engine

Blueberries cost 80g, regrow every 4 days, and drop three berries per harvest — over a full summer one bush out-earns almost anything else you can plant that early. Plant them the moment summer starts. Add a few melon blocks for the quality-crop bundles, and save a patch for starfruit only if the Oasis bus is running.

Fall: cranberries in bulk, one pumpkin patch

Cranberries follow the blueberry playbook (regrower, multi-berry) and pumpkin is the single-harvest heavy hitter for bundles and gifts. If any ancient fruit seeds have come out of your seed maker or traveling cart, fall is when a mature ancient fruit field starts paying 550g every 7 days forever — protect those plants with your life.

Winter: the money comes from mining

Nothing grows, so winter income is the geode-cracking, floor-descending grind plus artisan goods aging in your jars and kegs. Whatever spring two buys with that money — starfruit fields and more ancient fruit — is where the calculator above starts showing numbers that look like typos.

FAQ

What should I plant first in Stardew Valley?

The starter parsnips, then potatoes as cash allows, then everything into strawberries at the Egg Festival on day 13. That sequence is the fastest launch into blueberry summer profits.

Are regrowing crops always better?

Over a long window yes — seed cost amortizes across many harvests. For short windows, a fast single-harvest crop planted twice can beat a slow regrower; the crop calculator's gold-per-day with your real days remaining answers it directly.

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