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the-habitat-ring · 1 month

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The (Real) Stardew Valley Farm Update

Okay, so I meant to post way more about this, but the past year involved a truly inhumane number of medical appointments including driving an hour away 2-3 times a week all summer, so . . . not a lot of time for gardening and not much energy for posting. Fingers crossed that this year goes better!

To refresh, I'm trying to grow everything from Stardew Valley in our yard, with substitutions as needed, preferably with Midwest USA native plants. 2021 and 2022 can be found here, with my original plans for what I was going to do for 2023 and 2024.

2021: Additions/Corrections

Starfruit - Native wood sorrel (thanks to @alienskyler1 for teaching me that they were related!)

Cave Carrot - Queen Ann’s Lace, AKA wild carrot (also plenty of cultivated carrots)

2023: What Actually Happened

Garlic - Native wild garlic

Blueberries

Wild Horseradish - Not wild, contained in a raised bed on concrete because I don't want it to get too wild (also a mint containment system!)

Hops - Teamaker hops which is good for tea. It struggled in the summer so maybe tea this year?

Winter Root - I went with hopniss, aka groundnuts, a native vine with tubers you dig up in winter

Fiddlehead Fern - Native hayscented fern

Poppy - Native wood poppy

The ferns and poppies were planted in the fall, so hopefully they come up well this spring!

2024: The Plan

Blue Jazz - Native Ozark Bluestar (one of my winter sowing seeds)

Apricot Tree - Native passionflower vine, known as wild apricot (winter sowing)

Sunflower - Winter sowing two native sunflowers, and will hopefully be growing some massive non-native ones as well

Summer Spangle - Native prairie lily (winter sowing)

Palm Tree/Coconut - Native palm sedge. I'll grow this from seed once it warms up

Pineapple - White strawberries (pineberries)

Pumpkin

Melon

Oak Tree - Native dwarf chinquapin oak (it's been shockingly hard to get my hands on one)

Sweet Pea

Hot Pepper

Parsnip

Corn

Ancient Fruit - Native Aronia (they're blueish and have lots of antioxidants so you live to be ancient)

We'll see how it goes!

Planned for 2025 and Beyond:

Potato

Red Cabbage

Artichoke - Native Jerusalem artichokes

Cactus Fruit - Native prickly pear cactus

Yam

Bok Choy

Leek

Blackberry

Holly - Native winterberry holly

Crystal Fruit - Honey berries, which produce fruit earlier than anything else

Mushrooms - I'm just gonna ignore varieties and try some plugs or similar

???????

Still trying to figure out doable substitutes for these

Rice

Wheat

Qi Fruit - Very creepy

Taro Root - I would have to plant it in pots

Snow Yam

Mahogany Tree

Peach Tree

Pomegranate Tree - I could try Russian pomegranates?

I'll try to do a better job this year keeping everyone updated. It's been such a fun project and I'm so glad I decided to go for it!

#the (real) stardew valley farm #the habitat ring #gardening #don’t be a petaq grow native plants #stardew valley #sdv #I make bad decisions but at least the wildlife love me

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the-habitat-ring · 1 year

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The (Real) Stardew Valley Farm

So a year and a half ago we bought a house, AKA the real life habitat ring. I swear the yard came with every single non-aquatic invasive plant we’ve got. Slowly but surely we’ve been murdering all the Japanese honeysuckle and poison hemlock, tearing up a truly inhumane amount of weed barrier and pea gravel, and adding truckloads of wood chips and other organic matter to start to repair the soil. Our goal is to replace everything with mostly native plants with an emphasis on food production.

But of course I needed more of a challenge. I love playing Stardew Valley. It’s really the only video game I play. And somewhere I got the idea, “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool to grow everything in Stardew Valley in our yard?” So here we are. Obviously I don’t live on some magical land with perfect weather, a giant greenhouse, and a second farm on a tropical island, so I have to make plenty of substitutions. I’m also trying to grow native plants whenever possible. Any suggestions are welcome!

2021

Amaranth - Native white amaranth (the birds love it!)

Grape - Native riverbank grapes (so many grapes) and some green cultivated variety from the neighbors

Dandelion - Obviously

Maple Tree - Native silver, red, and sugar maples (also an invasive Norway maple but we chopped it down)

Pine Tree - Not sure what kind of pines they are

Apple Tree - Not in great shape. I’d love an Enterprise apple tree at some point

Coffee Bean - Chicory (maybe that’s cheating, but it’s a naturalized plant commonly used as a coffee substitute)

Salmonberry - Not native to the Midwest, so we’re sticking with native black raspberries. We’ll likely add some pink/yellow raspberries later though

2022

Kale

Rhubarb

Strawberry - Both cultivated and native

Tulip

Radish

Tomato

Beet

Eggplant

Fairy Rose - Not a real thing so I substituted the native prairie rose

Cranberries - Native cranberry viburnum

Orange Tree -Native persimmons, which produce orange fruit

Daffodil

Spring Onion - Native nodding onions and also green onions indoors

Spice Berry - Native spicebushes

Wild Plum - Native

Hazelnut - Native

Crocus

Cherry Tree - Native black cherries and nonnative bush cherries

Tea Leaves - Native New Jersey Tea bush

Banana Tree - Native pawpaws, which are also known as Indiana bananas

Mango Tree - One of the pawpaws is a named variety called mango so I think that counts

Ginger - Attempted native wild ginger, which I don’t think survived, but am also growing ginger indoors

Green Bean

Sweet Gem Berry - Native Juneberry (Downy Serviceberry) which are a redish color

Planned for 2023

Blue Jazz - Not real so I went with the native Ozark Bluestar, which seems similar enough

Garlic

Parsnip

Apricot Tree - Native passionflower vine. Not a tree, but it is known as wild apricot

Blueberry

Sunflower - Both native and non-native sunflowers

Pineapple - Neither my spouse nor I like pineapples, so we’re going with white strawberries known as pineberries that are said to have a tropical taste

Pumpkin

Melon

Wild Horseradish - Except I’ll be growing it in a pot because it tends to get a little too wild for my tastes

Holly - Native winterberry holly

Oak Tree - Native dwarf chinquapin oak

Sweet Pea

Hot Pepper

Palm Tree - Obviosuly not going to work here but there is a native palm sedge that I’ll plant instead

Planned for 2024

Potato

Corn

Hops - Hoping to get a cutting from a native hops vine (if the local beer people don’t kill me)

Winter Root - I’m gonna go with native ground nuts because you can dig up the roots in winter

Poppy - Hopefully native wood poppy

Red Cabbage

Artichoke - Native Jerusalem artichokes

Cactus Fruit - Native prickly pear cactus

Yam

Bok Choy

Leek

Fiddlehead Fern

Blackberry

Crystal Fruit - I’m gonna go with honey berries, which produce fruit earlier than anything else

Ancient Fruit - Native Aronia berries are the only thing I can think of for this one. They’re blue(ish) and have lots of antioxidants so you live to be ancient

Figuring Out Substitutes

Rice

Wheat

Starfruit - Not really sure how to swing this one, so suggestions are welcome

Summer Spangle - Not real, so I’m open to suggestions of native plants. Possibly prairie lily? It has a similar-ish shape, is orange, and blooms in summer

Qi Fruit - Creepy little man

Taro Root - I would have to plant it in pots

Morel - I wish I could grow this

All the other mushrooms - I think I’ll just ignore any varieties and just try plugs or similar

Snow Yam

Cave Carrot - Trying to find a native carrot substitute

Coconut - I shouldn’t count this separately from palm trees, right?

Mahogany Tree

Peach Tree

Pomegranate Tree - There are Russian pomegranates that are hardy to zone 6, which just might work with climate change

#I make bad decisions but at least the wildlife love me #don’t be a petaq grow native plants #gardening #stardew valley #sdv #the habitat ring #the (real) stardew valley farm

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