The opening sequence
Plant your 15 free parsnips on day 1, then buy potatoes as gold allows — potatoes cost 50g, grow in 6 days and have a ~25% chance of a bonus tuber, pushing their average yield above parsnips. Cauliflower (80g seed, 175g sell, 12 days) is the season’s big single-harvest paycheck but skips two full plant cycles.
Strawberry day 13 is the pivot
The Egg Festival on Spring 13 sells strawberry seeds (100g) — the best spring crop by gold per day if planted immediately, because they regrow every 4 days. Every plant bought on day 13 gets roughly four harvests before summer; the same seeds bought on day 20 get two. This is why veterans spend the whole first two weeks scraping together festival money, including selling early fish.
Forgotten spring money
Rhubarb from the Oasis (100g seed, 13 days, 220g sell) rivals strawberries for players with bus access, and green beans (regrowing trellis crop) fit fence lines. Keep one small plot of kale or cauliflower for the Community Center bundle — the spring crops bundle needs three different crops including a green bean.
Spring is decided on day 13
Spring has a strange shape: the best crop in the season is not purchasable on the day the season starts. Strawberry seeds are sold only at the Egg Festival on Spring 13, which means a spring plan is really two plans — what to plant on day 1 to keep cash moving, and what to plant on day 13 to carry the season.
| Crop | Seed | Sells for | Growth | Regrowth | Harvests in 28 days | Net per tile | Gold/tile/day |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strawberry | 100g (Egg Festival) | 120g | 8 days | every 4 days | 6 | 620g | 22.14 |
| Rhubarb | 100g (Oasis) | 220g | 13 days | none | 2 | 240g | 8.57 |
| Green Bean | 60g | 40g | 10 days | every 3 days | 7 | 220g | 7.86 |
| Potato | 50g | 80g | 6 days | none | 4 | 200g | 7.14 |
| Cauliflower | 80g | 175g | 12 days | none | 2 | 190g | 6.79 |
| Kale | 70g | 110g | 6 days | none | 4 | 160g | 5.71 |
| Garlic | 40g | 60g | 4 days | none | 7 | 140g | 5.00 |
| Parsnip | 20g | 35g | 4 days | none | 7 | 105g | 3.75 |
All figures use the same 28-day window, day-1 planting for everything except strawberry, base quality and no profession bonuses.
Why strawberry is not close
Six harvests. That is the whole argument. Strawberry matures in 8 days and then produces every 4, so a day-1 planting harvests on days 8, 12, 16, 20, 24 and 28. Six pickups of 120g against a single 100g seed is 620g net from one tile, and no other spring crop gets past 240g.
The regrowth cycle is what does it. Every other crop in the table either pays once (potato, cauliflower, kale, garlic, parsnip, rhubarb) or regrows on a long cycle — green beans take 3 days between pickups and sell for only 40g each.
The practical consequence is that spring 13 is a spending day, not an income day. Buy strawberry seeds with everything you can spare, plant them immediately, and keep the best seeds back for year two rather than selling the seed back.
Three worked examples
Strawberry, planted day 1. 6 harvests × 120g = 720g, minus 100g seed = 620g net, 22.14 g/day. In a real first spring you plant on day 13, which cuts the harvest count and still leaves strawberry the best crop in the season.
Potato. 6-day growth and a 25% chance of an extra potato per harvest, so the honest expected yield is 1.25 potatoes rather than 1. Four plantings fit in 28 days: 4 × 80g × 1.25 = 400g, minus 4 × 50g of seed = 200g net, 7.14 g/day. It is not the best crop, but a 50g seed that pays back inside 6 days is how you fund everything else.
Cauliflower. 12-day growth, 175g, does not regrow. Two plantings in 28 days: 350g gross minus 160g of seed = 190g net, 6.79 g/day. Its real attraction is giant-crop potential in a 3×3 arrangement and the quality bundle, not the per-day figure.
A spring plan that actually works
- Days 1–12: potatoes or cauliflower on as many tiles as you can water. Both pay back fast and neither ties up much gold.
- Day 13: the Egg Festival. Buy strawberry seeds with everything spare and plant them the same day.
- Days 13–28: strawberry takes over; the remaining potato/cauliflower tiles keep producing until they stop paying.
- Before summer: do not plant anything on day 26 or 27 that needs more than a day to mature — season change destroys unharvested annual crops.
Spring planning around day 13
The best spring crop is not sold on day 1, so a spring plan is really two plans split at the Egg Festival. These are the items for that planning.
- Planner notebook — Splitting spring at day 13 means two planting lists; writing them down is how you keep them straight.
- Second monitor — The gold-per-day table beside the game makes the day-13 pivot quick to act on.
- PC game controller — Spring play starts slow and light; a controller suits the short early days.
- Insulated mug — Early spring is a start-of-save ritual; a mug to hand suits the unhurried pace.
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Sources and standards
Where these figures come from
Every formula on this page is implemented from the published reference material below. Where a value depends on a regional code, the calculator lets you override it rather than assuming one jurisdiction.
- Stardew Valley — official site — the game of record; version notes and feature announcements come from here.
- ConcernedApe — the developer, and the authority on balance changes between updates.
Figures, formulas and reference tables last verified: 23 September 2026
