Stardew Valley sometimes rewards you with a giant crop at harvest which ends up giving you a bigger yield than expected. But are they worth it in terms of ROI? Can you grow a super-sized crop anywhere?
And what are the requirements to get an extra huge crop in the game? Here’s the ultimate guide on everything you’ll ever need to know about it:
Do All SDV Crops Get Extra Large? Can You Grow Them Anywhere?
No. You can get giant crops from Pumpkin in Fall, Melon in Summer or Cauliflower in Spring. These used to be the only three crops that could become giant sized.
You cannot get a giant crop on the Ginger Island farm, in Garden Pots or in the Greenhouse. Trust us, we tried. So they can only be grown outside on your farm seasonally.
BUT with the Stardew Valley 1.6 update, there are two more crops that can swell to gigantic proportions – Powdermelon in Winter, and that sunglasses-wearing, creepy, blue Qi Fruit. The latter is a year-round crop though.
This means that you can now get giant crops out of 5 crops all together.
Powermelon is one of the four new crops in SDV 1.6. It is a Winter crop that matures in 7 days. Its seeds cannot be bought. They can only be obtained by foraging, mining, reeling in golden treasure chests while fishing, exchanging golden tickets, completing the new Racoon quests and so on.
How To Grow A Giant Crop In Stardew Valley
To grow humongous veggies or fruits, till your land with a hoe and plant your seeds in batches of 9.
They should all be the same seed type, of course. Place each batch in a 3×3 grid without a sprinkler in the middle.
When the green plus sign appears next to them to tell you that they’re ready for harvesting, do not pick them!
Continue watering them daily, especially the center crop. You can do this two ways — if you have iridium sprinklers set up since these water two rows all around them and can thus cover the crop in the center.
Alternatively, upgrade your watering can so that you can stand one square away from the patch and long-press to water multiple rows.
If you try to water one crop at a time, you’ll end up plucking a melon or veggie by accident.
If you’ve advanced far enough in the game to have Junimos doing the harvesting for you, make sure these 3×3 tiles are out of their reach.
Also, ensure that you have a scarecrow nearby. There’s nothing as disheartening as finding your carefully-tended patch being destroyed by crows because you forgot that one detail.
Some players get extremely lucky and find a super size crop ready for them on the first day of harvest itself. But that’s a very rare occurrence.
There’s a 1% chance of your cauliflower, melon or pumpkin plants combining into a giant crop for each extra day that they’re watered. Each one can yield 15 to 21 crops. Just be patient.
Speed Gro of any quality can decrease the time required to grow these by a small margin. Adding fertilizer does not increase the chances of getting a large sized crop, though it can affect the quality and therefore, the price of the produce.
How To Harvest Giant Crops
Right-clicking to pick mature fruits, grains or veggies only works for normal-sized crops. In order to harvest giant pumpkins or melons or cauliflowers, you need to use an axe. Before you pick them, eat a food buff such as a Farmer’s Lunch or Complete Breakfast.
This will greatly increase the chances of getting higher quality produce, a Stardew Valley farming secret that many players remain unaware of until much later in the game.
Note: Qi Fruits only come in one quality.
Once you hit your gigantic crop with an axe of any level, it will drop multiple yields of varying quality.
Do Bigger Crops Yield More Gold In SDV?
Yes, bigger sized produce can be more profitable in Stardew Valley under certain conditions in the early in-game seasons. We had our pumpkin patch of 9 plants spawn into one giant crop on day 20 (it was ready for picking after day 13).
It yielded 16 pumpkins of mixed quality. Sure, it would have taken just 27 days to gain two harvests of 18 pumpkins without adding any soil enhancements.
But you’re forgetting that we didn’t have to pay anything for seeds.
Each seed costs 100g at Pierre’s General Store or the Night Market (Winter 17), and 125g at JojaMart, and the fruit yields a minimum of 320g each. So let’s do the math:
- 320g minimum price x 16 pumpkins minus 900g for 9 seeds = profit of 4220g (from giant pumpkin)
- 320g minimum price x 18 pumpkins minus 1800g for 18 seeds = profit of 3960g (from two harvests)
By year 2 of the game, you may find that using your land and sprinklers for more profitable plants such as Sweet Gem Berry, Starfruit or Ancient Fruit makes better sense.
But if you have a melon, pumpkin or cauliflower patch mature on day 25, it’d be better to continue watering it in the hopes of a bonus harvest on the last day since you can’t grow anything else on the land before the season changes.
Giant crops do not wither and die during a season change or even in Winter when you can’t make much use of your plot anyway.
Most advanced players just grow big crops as decorative pieces since they last through all four seasons.
The only minor downside is that the soil underneath them does not remain tilled, or retain fertilizer or Speed Gro.
About Stardew Valley
Stardew Valley is a relaxing, farming simulator game created by Eric ‘ConcernedApe’ Barone and inspired by the Harvest Moon (Story of Seasons) series.
It has been widely lauded for its technical soundness, soothing soundtrack and thoughtful game design.
The title was released on February 26, 2016 and is currently available for PC, PlayStation 4 (playable on PS5 too), PlayStation Vita, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and mobile.
The Stardew Valley 1.6 content update was launched on March 19, 2024 with a tonne of exciting new features including a Mastery System, new quests, new prizes and items and much more.
