Today I’m going to show you 5 things you can do in spring year 1 to jump start your farm!

Beginner 

1. Upgrade pickaxe – The first thing I’m gonna show you is quite a spicy strat, allowing you to have a copper pickaxe before the mines are even open!
   1. Only need 4,125 Day 3 for full pickaxe upgrade on day 5 (45 copper, 5 coal)
      1. For this strategy you will need 20 copper ore for the furnace, and 25 more for the bars. You will also need 5 coal.
   2. Need to buy 1 copper day 1 / 2 from clint to throw on floor and pick up for furnace recipe
      1. You need to either fish up a copper ore in a treasure chest, or buy one from clint and throw it on the ground, and then pick it back up. Keep in mind you have to do this by day 2 so that in the morning of day 3, clint stops by your place to give you the furnace blueprint.
   3. Coal can be found on the farm to make it cheaper
      1. While you could buy the coal required it’s quite easy to get 5 coal from mining some rocks on your farm! This will also get you started on your mining levels which is a nice bonus. I recommend doing this on day 1.
   4. Buying the pick
      1. Try to have all 45 copper ore and 5 coal by 1pm, as it takes 2.5 hours minimum to make 5 copper bars.
      2. You can bring the furnace with you and fish while you wait for the bars to smelt.
      3. All together assuming you have to buy all 45 copper ore it costs 3,375g plus 2,000g for the upgrade, which if you don’t spend money on a fiberglass rod, seeds, backpack, basically anything, then it should be quite easy with just fishing and maybe having to sell some foragables. In the intermediate video I will show how with some proper planning you can get all these things and the copper pick too! But for this beginner video we will keep it basic. If you still are having trouble you could reset and try to get some copper ore in treasure chests, or if you are lucky, a diamond to sell.  
2. Potatoes Number 2, farming, a obvious choice in making money, but there are some useful tips to go over.
   1. Good early money
      1. As far as farming crops, potatoes give you the best return in early spring year 1, mostly because you have a random chance to get an extra potato increasing your profits, Keep in mind the random chance is partially affected by daily luck! So you can wait to harvest until you have a good or best luck day, keep in mind waiting many days is also an opportunity cost, since the earlier you sell, the earlier you can buy more seeds.
   2. Helps get sprinklers
      1. Harvesting potatoes helps level your farming so you can unlock sprinklers! It takes 27 potatoes to unlock basic sprinklers and 235 potatoes to get quality sprinklers, this is the one you want!  
   3. Edible for mines
      1. Another good reason to get potatoes is for food in the mines, use the highest quality potatoes first as with all food in stardew, higher quality increases the energy and health gains more then it increases in sell price. So using gold potatoes first and then silver, is a helpful energy boost in mines!
3. Fishing  Number three, Fishing, is a great money maker in stardew early game. Lets look at a few things you should keep in mind while fishing!
   1. Lake fishing is easy and good money
      1. The best money making area to fish on non rain days is the lake, largemouth bass being the biggest contributor to this. Also be on the lookout for bubbles as they increase your bit rate dramatically, especially when you don’t have bait yet. If you are playing multiplayer, you will catch significantly less fish than in singleplayer, because in singleplayer the game pauses whenever there is a fish on the line.
   2. Can get treasure chests for extra resources and gems
      1. Treasure chests from fishing can have a huge impact on the early game. You cannot get artifacts from fishing until you are level 2 fishing and have found one artifact spot. So if you hit level 2 and haven’t found an artifact spot it may be good to try to find one. 
      2. There are also two useful weapons you can get in treasure chests that can help you in the early mines. The first is the broken trident, a level 11 dagger that has been quite useful to me in early game mines. Daggers used to be awful but in 1.5 their special was adjusted so enemies are held in place while your special hits, so it does a lot of damage now, but with very small range. The other weapon is the neptunes glaive, a level 7 sword, a decent sword for starting out in the mines.
   3. Leveling only makes it easier to get more money
      1. The most important thing about fishing is leveling, as hitting level 5 allows you to take fisher which will give you a 25% boost in income, you can hold on to all your fish in a chest and then once you hit level 5, fall asleep, take the profession bonus, and then the next day you can either sell to willy if you need the money that day, or put them in the bin. You’ll get 25% more on all the fish. You can use the same strategy till you hit level 10 as well, and get angler, give you another 25% increase for a total of 50%. Keep in mind holding onto tons of fish is money you could put into seeds or tools so it’s not always best to hold until level 5 or 10. Level 10 fishing takes a deceivingly long time. Going from level 9 to 10 takes a little bit longer than going from 0 to 7!
4. Foraging – Foraging, is another aspect you be thinking about in early spring for a few reasons.
   1. Helpful for getting bundles finished early in the Community center
      1. Getting foragables is needed for the community center, so save one of each, and also save a spring onion if you are remixed your bundles as that can be one of the remixed foragables added to the community center.
   2. Can provide energy to help with watering and clearing the farm
      1. On the first day of spring you can’t even fish yet, so your only source of energy is foragables, grab the spring onions in the south cindersap forest for some energy too.
   3. Foraging levels are great early, especially for berries mid-late spring
      1. Leveling your foraging early is helpful too. Hitting level 4 foraging gives you +1 berry per a berry bush, so getting to level 4 by the 15th of spring is nice, so you are ready for salmonberries to spawn. If you feel you are not gonna make level 4 from gathering forage alone, you can chop down trees or plant the spring seeds you get from the community center, keeping in mind they take 7 days to grow.
   4. Don’t need to chop the stumps for foraging exp just the top
      1. A tip when getting exp from chopping trees, the stumps give no exp so you can leave them, they also give you less wood per the amount of hits and energy required so its more efficient that way. They will even still spawn in new seeds around them while stumps! Keep in mind that chopping trees down off the farm, and leaving the stumps means new trees can not grow back in there place, so its best to chop those all the way down, if you want them to grow back.

5. Backpack Upgrade -Lastly the backpack, is a valuable tool in early game of course, but im going to show some other ways you can manage your inventory and save they money so you can use it on other things before getting a backpack.
   1. Helps with carrying all the forage and fish you get
      1. In early game its helpful to have a backpack to carry extra fish, and random treasure chest drops you get. If you bring wood with you and make a chest, you can actually put a chest anywhere in stardew valley, just make sure its not in a path of an NPC or they will destroy it! NPC pathing resource in the description below.  
   2. Helps with more food in the mines and means less time returning to the surface
      1. Having a backpack helps you in the mines but instead you can use a chest at the top of the mine by the elevator and offload all of your stuff every 5 levels you go down and grab more food as well.
   3. Backpack still needed
      1. While chests around town can help in the early game, a backpack is still needed as you will find it quite annoying when you need a certain item, only to realize its in a chest on the other side of town. So once you have the stuff you were trying to get out early, like potatoes, a fiberglass rod, or a copper pick, focus on the backpack next!

I hope this has been helpful in showing some basic ways to get a head start on your farm! This was just to cover the basics so we can dive deeper in an intermediate , and advanced strats where we push the game to its very limits. Thanks for reading, and  may the spirits be very happy with you today!