Stardew Valley’s 1.5 update came a slew of new features. One of the biggest additions was Ginger Island, an island off the south coast of Pelican Town that Willy can take the player to once they help him fix up his boat. After arriving on the island, players will first have to follow the new NPC Leo to the eastern end of the island and give his parrot a Golden Walnut.
After this, the player can unlock a ton of new content around the island, including a brand new farm to use. This farm operates independent of the home farm, and can be a great way to make some additional cash.
How to Unlock the Ginger Island Farm
Collecting golden walnuts is an essential part of maximizing the Ginger Island farm in Stardew Valley. From locating the Ginger Island farm to using it as a home location in Stardew Valley, players will need a total of 75 golden walnuts. Ginger Island has a total of 130 golden walnuts hidden, but there’s no easy way to find several golden walnuts quickly. The best way to collect several golden walnuts is simply by exploring, including inside the Volcano Dungeon, and solving the many puzzles around Ginger Island.
Players will first need 10 golden walnuts to awaken the sleeping turtle leading to Stardew Valley’s Ginger Island farm. It might become a hassle to travel back and forth between Pelican Town and Ginger Island day-to-day, but players can opt to build a sleeping hut on the Ginger Island farm instead by giving the parrots 20 Golden walnuts. The house is a 4 bedroom with a kitchen, bed, and shipping bin. Afterward, the parrots will also build a mailbox for another 5 walnuts.
The Beach Resort costs another 20 golden walnuts to build. The main draw to building the Beach Resort is that it allows NPCs to visit Ginger Island, but building the Beach Resort is also required to unlock the Farm Obelisk on Ginger Island in Stardew Valley. The Farm Obelisk will cost 20 golden walnuts as well. The Farm Obelisk is a warp device unique to Stardew Valley’s Ginger Island update that will send the player back to their Pelican Town farm, which is most convenient for players that don’t wish to spend all of their time at the Ginger Island farm.
The Ginger Island Farm Layout
The Ginger Island farm has 878 plantable tiles and unlike the beach farm layout that Version 1.5 introduced, sprinklers can be placed on the ground. Just like any regular Stardew Valley farm, the weeds, stones, and logs will need to be cleared out to maximize the planting area. There are two qualities that make the Ginger Island farm more ideal for farming than the Pelican Town farm.
Additionally, crows don’t appear on Ginger Island, so players don’t need to worry about them destroying their crops. This also means that placing scarecrows isn’t necessary. Also, any crops will grow on the Ginger Island farm, regardless of the season, similar to the Greenhouse. Any trees or crops can also be grown on the island at any time of the year, so some players choose to focus on the Stardew Valley Ginger Island farm over their Pelican Town farm to maximize profits; the only downside to this is that the number of tillable tiles is significantly less than any town farm layouts.
Ginger Island Farm Crops
Stardew Valley introduced a number of new crops and fruit trees with the newest update, including ginger, bananas, mangos, pineapples, and taro root. These crops can be grown on the Pelican Town farm as well, but have required growing seasons much like any other Stardew Valley crop. But on Ginger Island, these new Version 1.5 crops can be grown regardless of the season.
To obtain seeds or saplings to grow the new crops on Stardew Valley’s Ginger Island farm, they can be traded from the Island Trader on Ginger Island’s north end. A banana sapling will cost 5 dragon teeth, and a mango sapling 75 mussels. Taro tuber, which produces taro root, costs 2 bone fragments, and pineapple seeds can be traded for 1 magma cap each. Otherwise, cracking open golden coconuts will sometimes yield these crop seeds as well. Ginger is a wild root and, much like most foraged items, doesn’t sell for much.
But growing other 1.5 crops on Stardew Valley’s Ginger Island farm can be quite profitable. A banana’s base price is 150 gold and double that for iridium quality, not accounting for the tiller profession. Mangoes and taro root are a bit less profitable, starting at 130 gold, but pineapples should be taken advantage of on Stardew’s Ginger Island farm. They start at 300 gold and earn double as much for iridium quality. It may not be worth turning pineapples into jam, but with the artisan profession, the highest-quality pineapple wine is worth over 2,500 gold.
Stardew Valley is available now on mobile devices, PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
