A fairly optimal Greenhouse design and layout

This post is rated O for Optimization. This post contains scenes of min/maxing and optimization that are not suitable for all audiences. This post also contains gratuitous and explicit scenes depicting math, calculations, and formulae. Viewer discretion is advised.


Caveats

As with any guide on optimization, I would like to caveat that while this is a fairly optimized display, that does not give it any inherent superiority to any other layout, save from a gold per day perspective. Also, there may be some minor tweaks that can be done to this layout to eek out a bit of extra cash, but I find this layout to be the most practical optimal layout that I've come up with, hence the title of 'fairly optimal' instead of 'most optimized'.

Also, the optimized layout shown below is functional on the PC, but may not be as functional on Mobile or Console versions of the game, depending on how your particular version handles diagonal corners.

Pleased to meet you

With that out of the way, let's get down to business, shall we? Now, the Greenhouse unlocks when you complete the Kitchen bundles, and generally speaking the earliest for this to occur is your first Fall, barring either Joja Route to purchase it earlier or certain highly optimized (or very lucky) strats that go beyond the scope of this guide. However, you only get one Greenhouse, with strictly limited real estate within it. You can, for example, put Crystallariums anywhere that townsfolk don't walk, with the bus tunnel and quarry being favorite locations, however the primary advantage of the Greenhouse is that it is always the optimal season for any crop within, and with this in mind I set about how to maximize the utility of this trait for profits.

The simple Solution

The first layout I'll discuss is a fairly simple one... 116 Ancient Fruit with 6x Iridium Sprinklers. This is a no-frills least effort for your money solution for the farmer who wants to enjoy the finer things in life, and actually have enough time in his day to do so. And all you need is a single seed to get the ball rolling. If you want this to happen much faster, use Deluxe Speed Gro to reduce the initial growth time by a full week. If you are *really* concerned about maximizing how fast the greenhouse fills up, you can also use the statue in the Sewer to swap your Artisan perk (which, let's be honest here... if you're at all remotely concerned about profits, this is your only realistic option) to the Agriculturalist perk for a further reduction in iteration time.

Your first seed goes down. At this point, you can utilize the rest of your greenhouse however you like, many people enjoy using Starfruit, some like to plant some Beets for a... certain quest... that requires them. The choice is yours. After your Ancient Fruit fully grows and produces its first fruit, it will then produce one fruit per week thereafter. These fruits go into a Seed Maker for 1-3 additional seeds, with an average of 2 seeds per fruit, give or take (which is the number we'll be using in our calculations). Therefore, we will experience a geometric progression of ancient fruit planted. With Agriculturalist and Deluxe Speed grow, I've been able to fill my greenhouse in as little as a month (although I started with multiple seeds, as I got one in my first mining dive in Spring, and grew it throughout my first year, starting with several fruits by the time my greenhouse unlocked), but even at the slowest rate, it shouldn't take you more than 2-3 seasons to fully fill your greenhouse.

Combine this with either two sheds or one big shed full of Kegs for brewing, 116 in total, and you have a total of 116 Ancient Wine produced per week, once fully in production. At 2,310g/ea, that gives you a weekly income of 267,960g or a seasonal income of 1,071,840g. This also only requires one day per week in maintenance and work, harvesting the crops, collecting last week's wine, and starting the new fruit brewing, meaning it can fit in even the most casual gamer's playstyle, if you so decide. If anything, this lets you plant whatever you'd like in your gardens outside while still bringing in over a million per season in profits, reducing the stress of worrying about the aesthetics of your farm. Unless you wish to use your greenhouse for other purposes, of course.

As an extra bonus, you can plant fruit trees around the perimeter if your greenhouse for some extra cash, or just some extra decoration if you prefer.

So, why not Starfruit? Starfruit wine is the single most expensive item in the game, after all. And you're not wrong about that. However, there's a couple of problems with Starfruit. First, it isn't a multi-harvest crop, and as such will inevitably fall behind multi-harvest crops as crops will never expire in the greenhouse, meaning you don't have to pay every time to replant them. And second, it takes longer for starfruit to grow than Ancient Fruit. In the short term? Absolutely, while you still only have a couple of Ancient Fruit, you can fill the rest of your greenhouse with Starfruit, either for tempting Junimos to live in your farm to be your migrant workers corporate town workers slave labor most industrious and cute little guys, or just for profits. However, ancient fruit is definitely more profitable. Let's look at the numbers, shall we?

As stated previously, Ancient Fruit has a weekly yield of 2,130g, which brings daily profits to 330g/day. Starfruit, on the other hand, takes two weeks to grow and yields 3,150g/ea. But we also have to subtract the seed cost from the gross to find our net profit per unit, so 3150-400= 2,750, which brings the daily profits down to 196 and change per day. Even if you use Deluxe Speed Gro and a 10 day cycle, you're still only looking at 275/day, compared to Ancient Fruit's 330g/day. So while it's not bad, it's also not competitive in the face of Ancient Fruit.

The more complex solution

All right, this is what you came here for, isn't it? So, this is going to be a slightly more complex setup, and furthermore is going to require daily tending to keep up with. However, the upside is over a 50% increase in profits per week! As a result, instead of trying to explain how to set it up, let's use an image instead. The stumps are fruit trees, the rest should be fairly self-explanatory.

SDVGreenhouseLayout.png

Ancient Fruit is pretty awesome in the greenhouse, a steady producer of 330g/day. But there's a few contenders out there who produce even more daily profits, although they come with some terms and conditions.

Hops, for example, produces daily, and Hops are brewed into Pale Ale which sells (assuming Artisan) for 420g! The downside is, of course, that Hops are a trellis crop, meaning you'll still have to have some spaces between them to reach them all.

Another unlikely contender for highest profit per square per day is peach and pomegranate trees. The main drawback of fruit trees is that they are only 'in season' for one season out of the year, which is pretty disappointing for those who wish to make money from them. However, in the Greenhouse, this drawback is entirely negated, and all fruit trees blossom daily and indefinitely, making them a far more attractive proposition from a cash perspective. Peaches and pomegranates cost the same, so you can use either for these calculations. Peach/Pomegranate Preserves sell for 461g/ea, and they produce daily. Already, we've beaten Hops. If we go all the way to wine, however, we get 588g/day! However, there's a couple of severe limitations to that amazing theoretical number. First off, fruit trees need to be spaced out so they have two spaces between them, giving a sharp upper limit on how many can be planted within the confines of the Greenhouse, and then there's production times. Preserves take 2-3 days, brewing into Wine takes a full week. But these trees produce daily, so for each fruit tree you plant, you need 2-3 preserves jars or 7 kegs. Yeouch. With the layout I'm about to show you, with 30 trees, that's going to be 60-90 preserves jars or a stunning 210 kegs. Granted, the advantage is they don't have to be IN the greenhouse, they can go in Big Sheds or simply littered about your Quarry or anywhere else people don't walk, but that's still a LOT of production infrastructure. Therefore, I suggest at least starting out with Preserves Jars, since you've likely already built a few for summer Blueberries and fall Cranberries or Pumpkins.

The other problem with fruit trees is that they *cannot* have anything adjacent to them, or they won't grow. This was slightly changed in 1.4, wherein flooring wouldn't halt their growth, but sprinklers and other crops most certainly will. Of course, it won't stop their production of fruit after they are fully grown, but it does mean delaying the rest of the greenhouse a full season to let your trees grow before planting everything else.

So how much more profitable is it exactly? Well, let's Do The Math on that!

This layout has 30 Fruit Trees, 74 Hops, and 30 Ancient Fruit. Assuming you use Preserves Jars for your Fruit Trees, you're looking at (30*461)+(74*420)+(30*330) = 54,810g/day. That's 383,670g/wk or 1,534,680g/season.

However, to support this throughput, you will need some infrastructure. In total, you will need 144 Kegs to support your Hops, and you'll need another 30 for your Ancient Fruit. Then you'll need 60-90 Preserves Jars for your fruit. So you are looking at a minimum of 3 Big Sheds to keep up with production.

If, however, you decide to switch to Peach/Pomegranate Wine, you'll be getting 58,620g/day, which is 410,340g/week or 1,641,360g/season. BUT it'll cost ya. You'll need 144 kegs for hops, 30 for ancient fruit, then a total of 210 for your fruit, bringing your total to a staggering 384 Kegs total. That'll be a solid 4 Big Sheds to house all that.

Also of note, because you only have 30 Ancient Fruit, you can age it all in your Cellar with 120 Casks (which should just barely fit without needing to remove any) to gold-star quality, netting an extra 50% from that portion of your income, pushing it still further until it approaches (but doesn't reach) the two million mark for seasonal income.

In Conclusion

The Greenhouse is the path to post-resource scarcity. Or at least no longer needing to worry about monetary concerns. Even with nothing but ancient fruit, you'll be able to get your Staff of Traveling in a half a year, just from the profits of your Greenhouse alone, and that setup is just about as hands-off as it can possibly be, with only a one day work-week. But with a bit more micromanagement, you can push those profits even higher, and achieve annual revenues of over six million, just from your greenhouse alone.

Ultimately, how you set up your greenhouse is up to you. But if money is a concern... this layout is certainly a top contender.
 
I absolutely agree that this setup does require more micromanagement. When I was playing on the Forest farm, I'd put the Big Sheds directly under the entrance to the greenhouse to minimize transit times, and managed to generally get done with my 'morning chores' by around 9-10 AM, assuming I beeline for the greenhouse as soon as I wake up. This still gives you plenty of time to do other things, such as mining to obtain the copper and iron necessary to continue keeping up with your keg production or doing Skull Cave dives.

It takes a bit to get into the rhythm, though and to find the optimal path. Also, this was done on a PC, so console or mobile players may find it taking far longer, because I can just run past with my RMB pressed and harvest everything without stopping.
 

Tom

Rancher
As Schneekey said, this is good information to know. But you may not want to use it all. What you do want to use is:

1. Having 84 extra hops starters saved your first summer is a high priority.
2. Doing all the steps to get 30+ Kegs early your first summer and a Greenhouse in mid fall is a top priority.
3. Ancient Fruit is the apex lazy farmer crop you should work toward.
4. Hops infilled with Starfruit go in your Greenhouse the day it opens, and Ancient Fruit gradually displaces them for optimum leisure.
5. To wring out every last gold piece from your Greenhouse at the cost of lots of Kegs and daily runaround (compared with item 3, 100% Ancient Fruit, not item 4, starter Hops), mix Pomegranate, Hops, and Ancient Fruit.
6. As soon as you have all the Ancient Fruit you want in your Greenhouse it should become your apex crop outdoors (as long as you can squeeze in a couple of harvests before Winter).

This community spreadsheet page helps see the numbers Schneekey is talking about.
 
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As Schneekey said, this is good information to know. But you may not want to use it all. What you do want to use is:

1. Having 84 extra hops starters saved your first summer is a high priority.
2. Doing all the steps to get 30+ Kegs early your first summer and a Greenhouse in mid fall is a top priority.
3. Ancient Fruit is the apex lazy farmer crop you should work toward.
Up to this point, I would wholeheartedly agree with you.
4. Hops infilled with Starfruit go in your Greenhouse the day it opens, and Ancient Fruit gradually displaces them for optimum leisure.[/quote]So far, I concur.
5. To wring out every last gold piece from your Greenhouse at the cost of lots of Kegs and daily runaround, mix Pomegranate, Hops, and Ancient Fruit.
Here's where I have a quibble with how you are presenting the information. Not necessarily the inaccuracy, so much as the implication.

Hops is where the real increase in daily running around starts. Hops are a daily harvest, which is where the cost of more kegs and daily runaround really kicks in. You actually end up replacing mostly hops with trees, not ancient fruit, which doesn't increase the daily runaround very much, and you can easily use Preserves Jars instead of Kegs to still increase profits without needing enormous numbers of kegs.

Also, it's impossible to include trees after the fact, if you plan on interspersing them within your other crops, due to how fruit trees grow, or rather how they don't, when surrounded by other things. So you have to plan trees from the outset, and take an extra season before continuing with your greenhouse expansion. If fruit trees replacing other crops is part of your plan, they need to be put down first and foremost, before anything else goes in. The best you can get after the fact is a perimeter ring (which still isn't bad).
6. As soon as you have all the Ancient Fruit you want in your Greenhouse it should become your apex crop outdoors (as long as you can squeeze in a couple of harvests before Winter).

This community spreadsheet page helps see the numbers Schneekey is talking about.
One of the things that has always bothered me about that document is how misleading some of the information presented can appear to those who don't understand where those numbers are coming from. In particular, on the Crop Income tab, the Marginal Profit per Processor-Day has entirely correct numbers that tempts people into making entirely incorrect assumptions about production and profits per day. I understand the logic behind it, don't get me wrong, and I'm not disputing the accuracy of the numbers presented within the context. However, I'm pointing out that the context for those numbers cannot be adequately represented on the spreadsheet, and as such, is open to misinterpretation and misleading results. The numbers are intended to show the delta value per diem, how much value grows per production day, which is very different from total value growth which is in the Avg. Outdoor Profit/Space/Day section.

Mind you, I'm not accusing it of being deliberately misleading or obfuscated, I'm simply pointing out the inherent limitations of a spreadsheet and its inability to provide adequate context for numbers. I've... encountered this in my professional life before, and it's hard to explain "No, sir. The numbers are correct, they're just not relevant to the question you are asking, or at least the question you *should* be asking."

The spreadsheet is truly a thing of beauty, but it can be a two-edged sword.
 
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Tom

Rancher
Hops is where the real increase in daily running around starts. Hops are a daily harvest, which is where the cost of more kegs and daily runaround really kicks in. You actually end up replacing mostly hops with trees, not ancient fruit, which doesn't increase the daily runaround very much, and you can easily use Preserves Jars instead of Kegs to still increase profits without needing enormous numbers of kegs.
I probably should clarify, then, that item 5 is in comparison with a greenhouse 100% full of Ancient Fruit. The (my) goal is to get away from Hops and Starfruit so I am only cash farming once per week. I will edit.

The spreadsheet is truly a thing of beauty, but it can be a two-edged sword.
I wholeheartedly agree. Maybe you can ask the owner for edit permissions and see what you can do to make it communicate better. I assume (and hope!) he's not AWOL.

One thing I don't like about it as it stands is the order of the columns. I'm not sure what the order implies, but it implies something!

Tom
 

DeputyChuck

Greenhorn
Hello Everyone

Sorry for the Necro

I think I've slightly improved the OP's layout.
The total profit is only marginally better (You're getting 1 more Hop and 1 less Ancient Fruit)

But the picking route is much faster: You just go around once the outside, once the inside and once in the middle nook.
it does require pressure nozzles on the sprinklers though.

stardewplanner-1642175062133.png
 
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imnvs

Local Legend
I think I've slightly improved the OP's layout.
You can do it with 5 iridium sprinklers in a way that only uses up 1 tillable square.

You can also do it with deluxe retaining soil eventually and use 0 sprinklers and make full use of all tiles.

Also, your layout still has a LOT of space available for garden pots.
 

DeputyChuck

Greenhorn
You can do it with 5 iridium sprinklers in a way that only uses up 1 tillable square.

You can also do it with deluxe retaining soil eventually and use 0 sprinklers and make full use of all tiles.

Also, your layout still has a LOT of space available for garden pots.
True, all true

Though I didn't set out to make the absolute best layout, just improving on the OP's design since it's one of the first links that shows up when you google "greenhouse layout" and while really cool, the walk around to collect is a bit janky :)

I'll try the variants you proposed though, just for fun.

Thanks!
 
Hello Everyone

Sorry for the Necro

I think I've slightly improved the OP's layout.
The total profit is only marginally better (You're getting 1 more Hop and 1 less Ancient Fruit)

But the picking route is much faster: You just go around once the outside, once the inside and once in the middle nook.
it does require pressure nozzles on the sprinklers though.

View attachment 8168
This guide was written two years ago before 1.5 and pressure nozzles existed. Honestly, by the time you get Pressure Nozzles, you're pretty well post-scarcity anyway, but if there's interest I'll see what I can do with the 1.5 content, providing caveats about attainability and ease of access along the way.
 

imnvs

Local Legend
This guide was written two years ago before 1.5 and pressure nozzles existed. Honestly, by the time you get Pressure Nozzles, you're pretty well post-scarcity anyway, but if there's interest I'll see what I can do with the 1.5 content, providing caveats about attainability and ease of access along the way.
Presumably all you do is replace all the sprinklers with more hops because Deluxe Retaining Soil. Deluxe Retaining Soil only requires stone, fiber and clay to make. It is not difficult to get any of these resources. You can have as much as you'd like. Also, so long as you didn't use any other sort of fertilizer to grow your plants in the greenhouse, you absolutely can put retaining soil type fertilizers, including DRS, down on already planted/growing plants.

You start with your setup, and the time you get access to pressure nozzles is not far off from the time you get deluxe retaining soil, so you don't even take those into consideration. You just get deluxe retaining soil, put it down on all your watered squares, pull up the sprinklers, till, deluxe retaining, water, plant hops.

Again, though, I'll mention garden pots can push this a little further. 😉😘

Edit to add: I would never do this. I can't stand the work that hops requires. For me it's all ancient fruit and pineapples in garden pots.
 
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Presumably all you do is replace all the sprinklers with more hops because Deluxe Retaining Soil. Deluxe Retaining Soil only requires stone, fiber and clay to make. It is not difficult to get any of these resources. You can have as much as you'd like. Also, so long as you didn't use any other sort of fertilizer to grow your plants in the greenhouse, you absolutely can put retaining soil type fertilizers, including DRS, down on already planted/growing plants.

You start with your setup, and the time you get access to pressure nozzles is not far off from the time you get deluxe retaining soil, so you don't even take those into consideration. You just get deluxe retaining soil, put it down on all your watered squares, pull up the sprinklers, till, deluxe retaining, water, plant hops.

Again, though, I'll mention garden pots can push this a little further. 😉😘

Edit to add: I would never do this. I can't stand the work that hops requires. For me it's all ancient fruit and pineapples in garden pots.
Are pineapples available in sufficient numbers to be able to be worth the bother?
 

imnvs

Local Legend
Are pineapples available in sufficient numbers to be able to be worth the bother?
They only cost a magma cap each from the island trader, so aren't that hard to get as many as you'd need to fill in after being through the volcano a few times. I haven't fully optimized space-usage in my greenhouse and get about 30 pineapples from the pots around the outside.
 
They only cost a magma cap each from the island trader, so aren't that hard to get as many as you'd need to fill in after being through the volcano a few times. I haven't fully optimized space-usage in my greenhouse and get about 30 pineapples from the pots around the outside.
Magma caps aren't the only good and relatively easy way of getting them either. They are a pretty common drop from a few enemies in the volcano, and if you frequent there you can amass quite a collection. The way I got a ton though, and the way I think is easiest, is seedmaking a bunch of them. Just follow the same general strategy you would with ancient fruit and you should be golden.
 

FilthyGorilla

Local Legend
Magma caps aren't the only good and relatively easy way of getting them either. They are a pretty common drop from a few enemies in the volcano, and if you frequent there you can amass quite a collection. The way I got a ton though, and the way I think is easiest, is seedmaking a bunch of them. Just follow the same general strategy you would with ancient fruit and you should be golden.
They only cost a magma cap each from the island trader, so aren't that hard to get as many as you'd need to fill in after being through the volcano a few times. I haven't fully optimized space-usage in my greenhouse and get about 30 pineapples from the pots around the outside.
Yeah, I never get them from magma caps.
The volcano dungeon is pretty early/migame to be in there quite a bit and you will definitely always be wearing a burglars ring at that point. The hot head monster in the volcano has two 10% chances that it drops becoming about a 40% chance to drop a pinapple seed when simplified and a smaller chance to get up to four from the same.
When I go to the volcano in the pretty early game I usually get about 7-11 every trip by just killing the hot heads as I go.
Tiger slimes also have a drop chance but it's only 1.6%.
 

Ilune

Planter
Hops give nice money but require too much time. I played a farm full of sheds with pots with hops and harvest every day and put in the kegs take over half a day, every day. So, very few time to mining, fishing or foraging.
IMHO I fullfill the greenhouse with ancient fruits, plus trees in the ring, some garden pots in the basement (to water daily until I have the delux retainig soil) where to grow bluberries, cactus fruits, tomatoes, mais... 2 of each type (4 for the coffee) for the kitchen and gifts; I fullfill delux sheds with kegs and with pots with ananas.
I have to hardwork only once a week (harvest ananas and ancient fruits in greenhouse and on Ginger Island and put all in kegs) and I have the rest of the week for festivals, going around, mining, etc.
I reached 100% for the first half of autumn on the 3rd year, and usually because the golden clock require 2 full seasons of money.
 

BunWitch

Greenhorn
I brought the number of sprinklers taking up farm space down to 1, though I had to bring the total to 5 for it. All iridium with pressure nozzles.

I also improved DeputyChuck's ancient fruit layout for convenience, simply connecting the end of the loop with the middle part. It still uses the same amount of spaces.

From the entrance, you follow the red line harvesting the perimeter hops and fruit, then you harvest everything through the ancient fruit path and head straight down to the exit.

stardewplanner-1676807467103~2.png


Edit: And this is for if you want to line the walls with the garden pots, and I removed the sprinklers because I remembered deluxe retaining soil

Screenshot_20230219_044413_Opera~2.jpg
 
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