Disney Dreamlight Valley is my latest addiction, and as a seasoned MMO-veteran, I have come to learn and understand the easiest ways to manipulate resource management sims and come out with a boatload of cash.
There are plenty of easy ways to make money in Dreamlight Valley, but this one is the most worthwhile, as it allows you to cultivate a money farm without much dedication. You’ll be making tons of Star Coins without doing much, allowing you to tackle companion quests and handle other stuff around your village. It simply comes down to this: don’t underestimate the value of crops and be sure you’re selling the right ones.
1. Dig up your farm
To start off, you’re going to want an enormous farm. When I say big, I really do mean big (dig at least 200 holes). Feel free to move some of your villager’s homes into neat and tidy corners to ensure you have enough space to handle the full breadth of what you’re about to make.
The image above showcases the size of my farm. You could go even bigger if you’d like, but at that point, it’s probably just unnecessary. I’ve even moved my house into the corner for more space.
2. Find a companion
Once you’ve dug up sufficient space, this next step is very important. Ensure one of your companions has the Gardening trait. To check if any of them have this, pause the game, go to Collection and then scroll down to Characters. You can hover over each character to see what they have. It’ll be listed at the bottom of the screen.
If one of your characters does not have the Gardening trait, check if anyone in your village is still level one. If they are , you can quickly shower them with gifts (try flowers or their favorite items), to get them to level two. Once there, you can select what trait they’ll specialize in (this will not work on Ariel or Ursula). Obviously, pick Gardening.
If you have no one in your village who is level one, and no one has the Gardening trait, things get a little tricky, but not impossible. Check who’s grayed out in your Characters list and try to unlock them. For example, if Remy is locked, you’ll have to enter the main castle and spend some Dreamlight to enter his world.
If you have somehow unlocked every character, none of them are level one, and none of them have the Gardening trait, you’ll have to bite the bullet and move on with this guide. New characters will be added to Dreamlight Valley in the future. Just make sure when they do get included that you give some of them the Gardening trait.
3. Purchase your seeds
The next step depends entirely on where you are in the game. If you have Forgotten Lands unlocked, go to Goofy’s stall and purchase a bunch of Leek Seeds or Pumpkin Seeds. It’s your choice. Leeks will grow in two hours and can be sold for 309 coins per vegetable. Pumpkins take four hours to grow and can be sold for 664 per vegetable. However, a single Pumpkin Seed costs 275 coins whereas a Leek Seed is only 120. They’re both great for farming money, though.
If you don’t have Forgotten Lands available to you, no worries! That’s pretty late in the game anyway, so it’s unlikely that you’ll have access to it so easily. The next best thing is Frosted Heights, where you’ll buy a bunch of Eggplant Seeds. Still don’t have that? That’s fine! Forest of Valor is where you’ll go next to purchase Onion Seeds from Goofy. If you have none of these regions, go to Peaceful Meadow and purchase a ton of Carrot Seeds.
For those who have none of these regions unlocked (which is pretty unlikely), it means you’re too early in the game to be doing this strategy. However, as soon as you unlock Peaceful Meadows, it’s fair game.
If you’re wondering how many seeds you should be purchasing, I typically go for somewhere around 200. I have 233 holes dug up in my farm, so if yours is anywhere near the size of mine, you’ll need lots of seeds to fill them up! If you can’t afford that (things can get pretty expensive late-game), then do as many as you can without bankrupting yourself.
4. Beginning your farm
Now that you have tons of holes in the ground, a lovely companion who’s willing to do some light gardening with you, and a bunch of seeds, you’re ready to make money! Interact with a companion who boasts the Gardening trait and select the “Let’s hang out!” option.
As soon as you’re hanging out, you can begin. Plant your seeds, water them, and wait patiently. Be sure to water them whenever they dry up. In the meantime, feel free to do whatever you need to around your village.
Once things are finished growing (carrots only take 15m, but eggplant takes 3 hours), you must go back to your companion with the Gardening trait and select the “Let’s hang out!” option again (assuming you dismissed them after planting everything). Now you can begin harvesting. It’s important that your companion with the Gardening trait is by your side whenever you plant, water, or harvest crops.
Not only will you notice that their friendship meter is increasing quite rapidly, but they’re also occasionally offering a greater yield of resources. When they’re at a low level, it’s not going to be as great, but the more you do this, the more effective it will be.
The best part? Companion buffs stack. You may have noticed a hidden line of text that only appears when you click up on the D-Pad while hanging out with a companion: “Chances increase with the Friendship Level of every Character in the Village who has this bonus.”
This means that the more you do this, the more crops you will get with each harvest. Once your companion with the Gardening trait hits level 10, you must grab a new companion with the Gardening trait as soon as possible, to vastly increase the yield.
I currently have four max-level companions with the Gardening trait. With a 233 crop harvest, I managed to get a total of 421 crops in total thanks to my companion. You’re not always going to be this lucky, but the more you improve this stat, the better your chances are. I’m unsure if it’s possible to get it to a 100% chance, but you can probably get it pretty darn close.
5. Make easy money
What’s next, you might be asking? Well, obviously, sell it! I recommend keeping some vegetables at home just in case you need to cook something with Remy, but otherwise, go ham on the money making.
You can see in the above image, I’m currently selling a single harvest’s worth of eggplant to Goofy for a total of 166,000 coins. Keep this farm active in the background while you’re doing other stuff in town, and you’ll have a steady influx of money.
You can use this strategy with any and all plantable crops, not just the ones I listed. However, the ones I listed are what make the most money. If you do decide to use a different crop than the ones I recommended, I suggest against planting crops that typically yield multiple vegetables per harvest.
Companions can occasionally gather an additional crop when harvesting it, but even though the vegetable comes out in a stack of three with each pick-up, your companion will still only grab one. As a result, it’s nowhere near as viable to use okra, asparagus, tomatoes, spinach, or zucchini as easy ways to earn money.
You’re going to want the most valuable single vegetable, which is why early game users should stick with the carrot, move to the onion whenever you unlock it, move on to eggplant, and then eventually stick with the leek in the end.
