The almanac

Every crop was a small bet: cheap, fast crops were safe but low-value; slow, expensive crops paid off big — if a friend didn't get there first. Here's a nostalgic field guide.

Common crops and their reputations

Crop	Grow time	Steal risk	Notes
🥬 Cabbage	Very fast	Low	The reliable starter crop. Nobody brags about stealing cabbage.
🥕 Carrot	Fast	Low	Cheap, forgiving, always in rotation early on.
🌽 Corn	Medium	Medium	A farm staple. Rows of corn made a plot look established.
🍅 Tomato	Medium	Medium	Popular for its colour and decent payout.
🍆 Eggplant	Slow	High	A juicy target — worth setting an alarm for, on offence or defence.
🍓 Strawberry	Slow	Very high	Everyone's favourite thing to steal. Plant at your own risk.
🥔 Potato	Medium	Low	Unglamorous but dependable — the "safe" late-game filler.

Reading the table

"Steal risk" here isn't an official statistic — it's a reflection of how often a crop was worth a friend's while to raid, which mostly tracked with how long it sat ripe and how much it sold for. The highest-risk crops turned harvesting into a genuine race against the clock, which was, for better or worse, the whole appeal.