Highlights

• Starfruit is easier to get than Pineapple as a Summer fruit, and it makes valuable wine. Sandy sells Starfruit seeds in the desert Oasis.
• Sweet Gem Berries take patience to grow, but they sell for a high price. Giving one to Old Master Cannoli grants you a Stardrop.
• Ancient Fruit is the most valuable crop in Stardew Valley but takes time to scale up to a mass-producing fruit.

There’s technically no right or wrong way to play Stardew Valley, but with so much emphasis on tending to your farm, it’s no surprise you’d want to know which crops are the best! And with almost 50 crops in Stardew Valley, it can be pretty tough.

With tilling, planting, and tending crops taking so much of your energy, especially in the early days of the game, you’ll want to make the most of the effort. In this list, we’re picking out some of the most valuable crops in Stardew Valley to help you get the ball rolling on your farm.

Updated on April 13, 2024 by Gabrielle Castania: With the recent Version 1.6 update, we're updating plenty of our Stardew Valley content to bring it line with both the current Stardew Valley trends and our current publishing standards.

9 Red Cabbage

A Year Two Addition

Unless you mess with the settings on your game before you formally begin, you won’t encounter the Red Cabbage seed until your second year in Pelican Town.

You can toggle a setting that makes the Community Center able to be completed in year one, which sees the Traveling Cart sell one Red Cabbage seed at some point throughout the year. You won’t know when she’s selling it, though, so be sure to check often if this setting is enabled!

But despite the rarity of the seed your first year, you’ll eventually need it to finish the Community Center. It does turn a pretty profit, too, so be sure to grab some!

8 Pineapple

Tropical Island Vibes

A juicy slice of Ginger Island that you can take back home to the Valley and plant there as well? Sign us up! Granted, if you plant them on your Island Farm, you’ll have tropical fruit year-round, but there’s always such a Summer feeling to seeing them pop up on the farm.

Not only does Pineapple sell for a nice sum on its own, but turning it into wine is a nice way to increase your already-high sale price. Additionally, you may see Caroline ask for 100 of them on the Special Orders board once that’s installed, so be sure to keep a stock on hand to grab the Solar Panel recipe when she offers.

7 Strawberry

Turn Your First Ones Into Seeds To Make More Money Year Two

Strawberries would likely have ended up higher on our list with the regrowing crops of other seasons, but what keeps them this low on the list is how tough they are to make work in your first year in Stardew Valley.

Your first Strawberry seeds are available from Pierre’s Shop during the Flower Dance on Spring 13, which means you don’t get access to them until halfway through their growing season. Plant some year one and turn them into seeds, though, and you’ll be able to start your second spring with one heck of a money-maker.

6 Tie: Cauliflower, Melons, And Pumpkins

As Long As They Fuse Into A Giant Crop

Sure, these crops sell for different prices and grow during different seasons, but what really makes them shine is their ability to fuse together into Giant Crops. There’s no way to guarantee that it’ll happen, but it’s awesome when it does!

When you plant a three-by-three square of these crops, you may see them become a Giant Crop, which just about doubles your harvest. Smack this colossal crop with your axe a few times, you’ll harvest almost two dozen of them instead of the nine you planted. Talk about return on investment!

5 Tie: Blueberry And Cranberry

Plant Once, Grow All Season

We already touched on crops that can do this with the Strawberry, but Blueberries and Cranberries are the other two berry crops that can be planted the first day of the season and harvested throughout. These two, though, are sold as seeds at Pierre’s on the first day of their growing season, giving them a leg up.

When you harvest your berry plants, they’ll drop multiple crops at once. Not only that, but the fruits grow back after a few days – four for Blueberries and five for Cranberries – meaning you can plant them once and enjoy a harvest all season long.

4 Corn

Plant On Summer One, Harvest Through Fall 28

There aren’t many crops in Stardew Valley that grow during multiple seasons, with the majority of the others being single-harvest items, but with Corn growing throughout the Summer and Fall, you’ll enjoy two seasons harvesting from the same field.

​​​​To make the most of things, be sure to plant your cornfield on Summer One, and you’ll be able to harvest Corn off the same plant through the final day of Fall. If done like this, you can get a total of 11 Corn harvests that year (and that’s without using Speed-Gro to hasten the growth!).

3 Starfruit

A Desert Delight

Though Pineapples technically sell for more gold than Starfruits when sold as raw produce, we’re giving Starfruit a leg up because it’s much easier to get your hands on than the tropical treat. Your first Starfruit will likely come from Sandy over at the Desert Oasis.

To unlock the desert, you’ll need to finish one of the Community Center bundles, but as soon as you make your way out there, you can buy as many Starfruit seeds from Sandy as you can afford!

Plant them in the summer and spend the rest of the year turning them into wine using as many Kegs as you can build, since Starfruit Wine is a pretty valuable artisan good.

2 Sweet Gem Berry

Old Master Cannoli Has Expensive Tastes

Have you ever noticed that “Rare Seed” the Traveling Merchant occasionally sells, the one you need to buy for a steep price and need to wait until Fall before you can actually grow? That seed takes almost all season to grow, but they blossom into Sweet Gem Berries, one of the most valuable crops in Stardew Valley.

Of course, it’s wise to surrender your first Sweet Gem Berry to Old Master Cannoli over in the Secret Woods, since he’ll give you one of the game’s Stardrops for your efforts, increasing your max energy immediately.

1 Ancient Fruit

The Museum Donation Gift That Keeps On Giving

Without question the most valuable crop in all of Stardew Valley, the Ancient Fruit can be tricky to grow when you first get it. You’ll need to find a single Ancient Seed out in the wild by digging in the artifact spots around town, but once you find it and turn it in to the Museum, Gunther rewards you with a single Ancient Seed you can actually plant.

You’ll only receive one Ancient Fruit from your first crop, but by turning them into seeds with a Seed Maker and growing your fields each time the plant is ready to harvest, you can quickly amass a bulk number of Ancient Fruit plants between your Pelican Town farm and the one on the island. If you’re looking for an easy way to compound your earnings, plant Ancient Seeds early and often!