Recommendations: Small and Medium Crop Packs by Tiakall

If you're just getting started with Stardew modding and want to try expanding your growth options, you might find packs like PPJA Fruits and Veggies or Raffadax's Teas and trees to be overwhelming in size. Maybe you'd like one new crop, or a small, well-planned pack. In no particular order, here's a bundle of my (tiakall's) favorite crop mods with twenty or less crops:

Aster's Fruit Trees as Crops

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If you're tired of having to play the "all eight tiles around a tree must be empty" dance or just want a cute tree to go in a pot, this mod takes the eight vanilla trees and cute-ifys them to grow like crops: maturing in 24 days, able to utilize fertilizer, susceptible to crows, and die at the end of the season (so consider the greenhouse.)

Joja Seeds

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I love a clever mod pack. This tight mod takes 15 vanilla crops and Joja-fies them, toying with the costs, profits, growth times, and even the gift tastes of the grown crop. Each one thinks through what capitalism would do with a crop, sometimes based on real-life agriculture. I can't wait to grow the perfectly-timed annual Winter Berry....

Magic Tree Roots

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Currently at 18 trees, this pack is beautiful, each of the trees more like a statue or work of art that wouldn't look out of place in Leah's front yard (psst, you can use Crop Transplant to get it there.) Each tree produces fruit with whimsical names such as "Summer Dew" or "Untold Story", which don't currently do anything more than sell-- but honestly, do you need more?

Hybrid Mini Rose

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Playing with Hybrid Crops? Love Animal Crossing? I just found your new favorite pack. You start with three colors from Pierre--red, white and yellow--and crossbreed them to produce 16 more variations. (Or you can just buy them all after year 3, but where's the fun in that?) Fingers crossed that Kaya makes some cosmos and mums packs as well.

Cloud n Heart Trees

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Another Kaya mod, this one takes an old Content Patcher mod, Magica Trees, and provides them as new attractive trees that produce various geode minerals. If you've been grumbling to yourself about how the rare fairy stone doesn't just grow on trees.... well, now it does!

Mulberry Crop and More Silk

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There's a couple of different mulberry crops out there, but this one gives you both silkworms and spiders to make silk with. Plus, it's Kaya, so it's guaranteed to look good.

Golden Pumpkin

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Me: Ehh, I don't really need a mod to grow golden pumpkins, they're supposed to be rare.... *sees the giant crop version* ...I need to grow golden pumpkins.

Look, just go check out Kaya's mods. They're all pretty.

Grapes of Ferngill

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Originally a tie-in with Stardew Valley Expanded and one of its vineyards, Grapes of Ferngill provides five new multi-season grapes and artisan goods to go with them. Unlike other wine packs, these grapes aren't based on real-life varieties, more suited to the light-fantasy world of Stardew. We need more clever fantasy crops!

Ancient Crops

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This one is just so neat. It adds six new crops, based on the idea of the ancient seeds, with progression as each new one is unlocked by shipping the previous one + occasional additional requirements. They're original, look cool, and useful, with several unique artisan goods tied to them (two of which are unfortunately dependent on having the massive Artisan Valley, buuut if you feel like tweaking a .json just a bit....)

Lucky Clover

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A simple mod that's often held up as an example for mod makers just starting with making crops, all it does is grow some four-leaf clovers in the spring. But they're cute and they sell for a pretty penny and they're a universal love among vanilla NPCs.

Octo Crops

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I have a soft spot for this probably-abandoned mod, which adds just one tree and one crop, sold by the Dwarf (who is often underrepresented in crop mods.) It goes straight into the fantasy realm with the Octo crop and the Moonfruit tree, and gosh darn it, I just think they're pretty.

Golden Coconut Tree

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Another mod with theming and progression, this ties into the Golden Coconut available in 1.5. Go on a quest for the Wizard (with customizable difficulty), and get rewarded with a single Golden Coconut sapling you can plant for more. (Trust me, given the limited contents of golden coconuts and that you can't sell them, one is really all you need.)

Marshmallows in Stardew

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As a plant nerd, I appreciate that this mod stays true to the marshmallow's swampy origins with the marsh mallow plant, along with a cocoa tree that allows you to manufacture chocolate goods (carefully named, I believe, to avoid conflicts with other chocolate mods). This mod focuses a little more on cooking than cropping, with several chocolate and marshmallow-based recipes (including a prismatic marshmallow), but this is a good mod for those who like to easily drown in flowers.

SSaturn's Tropical Farm

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Scooting in just under my arbitrary limit at 20 crops/trees, SSaturn's mod draws on the more unusual real-world varieties, some of which I hadn't even heard of (which takes a bit of trying; as mentioned, I am a plant nerd), appropriately sold by Sandy's shop. It also includes several craftable decor items and some neat recipes. My only complaint is that none of the crops are unlocked until year 2. At least give us a teaser!

Magical Crops

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Shekurika uses coding shenanigans to make crops do things they absolutely should not be doing. XD Part of the fun is the discovery, so I won't be too specific, but seriously, if you want crops that do the unexpected, give it a try.