How to Succeed in Harvest Moon Back to Nature

Familiarize yourself with your surroundings on the first day, especially if you are a first-timer.

Gather some tools in your house. A hoe, scythe, and an axe are all that you really need. Save your rocks as you may need them for artificial fences. Clear out the area right next to your shipping bin because you want to harvest your crops as fast as possible. Since you do not have a shipping basket at this time, planting crops in a C plot will allow you the most time (A C is one horizontal row of three, one row of two, and one row of three). Create 4 plots with one square of space in between them and make sure to place them as close to the shipping bin as possible.

Go into town and watch the various cut scenes of characters. During the cut scenes, your choices will affect your relationship with the girls. Now would be a good chance to familiarize yourself with the town but remember, time is money. Head to the supermarket and buy some turnip seeds. Turnips will grow the fastest and yields a good amount of profit. Four packets of turnip seeds should be the maximum amount of seeds you can buy at this point with five hundred G.

Return to your farm and go immediately to your toolbox inside your house. Switch your scythe for a watering can and switch your axe for the seeds. Leave your house and go to your pond, which is located to the left of your tree. Refill your watering can and run back to where you planted your seeds. Water each square.

Go to the mountain by going to the south end of your farm and crossing the bridge over the river. There is a fork in the road when you initially reach the mountains. The stairs lead to a hot spring and a mine behind the waterfall. Straight down will lead you to a lake, a field of flowers, and the top of the mountains. Taking the path opposite of the stairs will lead you to Gotz the Woodcutter's house.

Look for Blue medicine plant as it is one of the more profitable mountain harvest. One is up the stairs and the other is near Gotz's house. Place them in your rucksack. Take a bamboo shoot while you're at it. Now your rucksack and hands should be full. Run back to your farm and put your "harvest" into the shipping bin.

If you find yourself with some energy left, go to the mine. You should still be carrying your hoe with you. "Mine" the land and occasionally, some ores will pop up or you will find a ladder down. The lower the level, the greater the chance of finding more expensive ores like the Blue Mysterile. You will probably have a hard time going to lower levels since your stamina is not that high yet. But if you are lucky, you will dig up a power berry here which will increase your stamina. If you find any ores, make sure to put it into your rucksack and ship it if you can make it to your bin in time. Otherwise, wait until tomorrow.

First Day Complete! Go home, pick up and put down your dog, check the weather, write in your diary, and sleep.

Fall into a routine. When you wake up, water your crops, woo some girls, harvest the mountain crops, mine, and sleep. Eventually, you may want to plant a few fields of grass so clear some land in preparation of grass. With your extra stamina, chop the logs with your axe to gather some lumber. Note that you cannot chop the tree stumps yet.

Go to Barley's farm and there you should see a cutscene. Barley brings the horse to your farm. Your objective is to plant many fields of grass (plan this well so your grass does not conflict with your other crops. A suggestion would be to start your grass stash in the bottom right corner of your farm and work outwards from there). Get 800 g to have enough money for a brush because you need to talk to the horse and brush the horse every day.

Get plenty of chicken feed. In the spring, the only way you are going to get feed for chickens is by buying it from Popuri's mother. In the summer, you can use corn and put it in the water mill right next to the coop. Eventually, you can receive a free chicken if you woo Popuri enough so you can use your money solely for feed. Another opportunity comes up when Rick asks you to take care of a chicken for him and though you have to return the chicken, you can still keep the eggs and put them in the incubator. And the third option is you can buy your own chicken, but remember to have enough feed for it.

Concentrate on planting some grass and getting the brush, milker, and a cow. Note: Have a store of fodder for your cow by cutting your grass when it is the darkest shade of green. This will ensure that you will not run out of fodder for your precious cows. Talk to and brush your cows every day.

Build squares of grass and surround them with the rocks you were saving. When you get animals, you can put them in there and they will not travel out! Then you can save your lumber for more important things like extensions or as presents to Gotz. Too many rocks? Store them in your cabinet once you extend your house.

Get a harvesting basket and the largest rucksack. However, if it is one or the other, get a basket. It will play a key role in harvesting during summer.

During summer, buy pineapple seeds from Won, the funny-looking merchant with a yellow jacket. He hangs out at the Inn on Wednesdays and the weekends as long as it is not a holiday, so check it out. Pineapples are renewable so you do not have to constantly buy them. They do carry a hefty price tag though (1000g a pop)but you can sell it for 500g each.

Plant a lot of pineapples and watch your money grow almost exponentially. Have pineapple seeds before summer starts because you lose a day from the swimming festival. A word of warning: these pineapples take a long time to grow so your mountain harvests, chickens, and the livestock you have will come in very handy. Plant a field of corn right next to your chicken coop to be devoted for chicken feed and plant a few fields of tomatoes and corn or all corn, since corn should yield a larger profit than tomatoes. The reason you may want to plant both though is to get 100 of each crop shipped so you can get the special seeds for summer.

When fall rolls around, be prepared to make a ton of fields and have the best watering can ready (with all those pineapples, money should not be a problem).

During fall, a really important mountain harvest lies next to the lake deep into the mountain. It looks like a thin stemmed mushroom and it is called a "Truffle." These yield approximately 1000G for each one so come to the mountain daily.

Buy one packet of sweet potato seeds for each field you have (this is the fastest growing crop). This may be your busiest harvesting season and your most profitable, so get ready. Buy as many sweet potato seeds as you have fields.

By now, your farm should be set with a cow or two and a sheep. You also should have over 10 patches of grass. Harvest your grass when the time comes because nothing grows during the winter season.

Now winter is here! While putting your concentration on your animals, upgrade your axe up to the blue level (in one sitting. Look at tips below). Chop the wood and make sure you have enough lumber and extend your farm up to the level of hothouse if possible.

If you are getting chocolate, the winter thanksgiving would be the time to do so. Hopefully, you have wooed two girls at least up to a purple or blue heart (while focusing on your girl).

For extra cash, there is a second mine opened up deeper into the mountain where you found the truffle. The lake has frozen so bring your basket and hoe and mine to your heart's content. Adamantite is used for the mayo maker, the cheese maker, and the yarn maker. The Orichalcum is for getting a girl's accessory.

Once a girl has reached the red heart level, you will have the option of buying a blue feather in the store. You can get married only if your house is extended to the max.