Blackberries are a wild berry that can be foraged across Stardew Valley. When you are just starting out, they are an excellent source of Health and Energy and can be stacked so they take up less space in your backpack, making them an excellent meal for when you’re mining. While foraging for berries can be a time-intensive act, the free nature of the naturally occurring berries can really provide you with a lot of in game benefits.
Finding Blackberries
Blackberries are not a fruit that is available year-round. In fact, they are only available in the Fall months 8-11, and can be found on bushes or on the forest floor. When you hit a blackberry bush, the bush drops a single berry. Even though you are technically foraging for berries, you do not gain any Foraging XP.
Linus’ Quest
An interesting quest that involves blackberries is finding Linus’ blackberry basket. Linus is an older villager who lives a bit removed from the main NPCs of Stardew Valley. He is not treated too favorably by the other villagers, but you can still interact with him normally and gain friendship hearts. Before the beginning of the quest, you do not need to have interacted with Linus. The quest starts on the eighth day of fall, where you will receive a letter from Linus asking you to help him find his blackberry basket. The quest has no time limit and does not need to be finished within the fall season.
Where you can find the basket (Spoiler Alert!)
The basket can be found in the map area that is directly to the left of the Bus stop. If you make your way over to the bus and then turn left, you will come across a small area with some bushes and a bus tunnel. You can find the blackberry basket on the north side of the road but in the fall, it will blend in with the autumnal colors, making it a bit hard to spot.
Once you have the basket, all you need to do is find Linus and hand him the basket back. Although you don’t get a monetary reward you do get one friendship heart at the completion of this quest!
Harvesting and Selling Blackberries
Harvesting blackberries is a simple enough task. They can be harvested with the help of an axe, but do not drop any Foraging XP when collected.
Blackberries are among the lower ticket items present in the game, where normal quality berries are sold for 20g and iridium quality berries can be sold for 40g.
Uses for Blackberries
Recipes
While blackberries can be eaten as is and make an excellent fuel source, you can also make blackberry cobbler in your kitchen, upgraded farmhouse, or Cookout Kit. These can be sold for 260g which is a drastic increase from the sell price of a single blackberry.
You can also make a blackberry jerry using preserve jars. This will increase their price to 90g. While the jelly is not edible it makes for an excellent gift to all villagers except Sebastian.
Crafting
Blackberries, Jelly, and Blackberry Cobbler can be used to dye shirts blue. You can only dye clothes that have “dyeable” listed in their description. All you’ll need to do is add a piece of dyeable clothing back to the sewing machine in the spot where cloth goes. Then, you’ll need to add the additional item to the spot that is right above the power button. You can also use dye pots that are on the right side of Emily’s sewing room. However, dye pots can only be used to dye clothes you are currently wearing.
You can also craft Fall Seeds with blackberries you have foraged. In order to do this, you’ll need to be a foraging level 6. Once you have crafted and sown your Fall Seeds, the fully grown plants will give you random plants such as Blackberries, Common Mushrooms, Hazelnuts, and Wild Plum. If you are a Botanist by profession, all of your Fall Seed crops will be iridium quality.
Tips and Strategies for Blackberries
Maximizing your Blackberry Harvests
Your Profession Matters
If you choose the Botanist profession, all blackberries you harvest will be of iridium quality.
If you choose the Tiller profession, you will receive a 10% price bonus whenever you sell blackberries. Also, if you stack all of your blackberries and sell them in stack form, your stack will receive a Tiller bonus as well.
Foraging Level and Foraging Buffs
As your Foraging level increases, so will the number of blackberries you harvest from each bush. At Level 4 of Foraging, you can harvest 2 berries from each bush, and at Level 8 you can harvest 3 berries per bush.
You can also consume a Foraging Buff and if that increases your Foraging skill to 12 or more, you’ll be able to harvest 4 blackberries per bush. Some of the more popular Foraging Buffs are caused by:
- Pancakes (+2)
- Autumn’s Bounty (+2)
- Survival Burger (+3)
- Tropical Curry (+4)
Bear’s Knowledge:
Bear’s Knowledge is a small mission that gets started after you find Secret Note #3. Once you have the note, you’ll need to visit the Secret Woods between 6am and 7pm. When you meet the bear, you’ll need to have some Maple Syrup in your backpack to hand over. A small cutscene will occur where the bear thanks you and gives you some knowledge which permanently raises your blackberry price 3 times. If you are a Tiller as well, your final blackberry sell price will 3.3 times that of the original.
Mods and Fan-made Content for Blackberries
While blackberries are an item that can only be foraged for, this mod allows you grow your own blackberry bushes in their season. This way, you don’t have to do too much searching to find blackberries.
Some reddit users take great advantage of blackberry season and have expressed their enthusiasm from profiting so much from a free item.
Conclusion
Blackberries may seem like an innocuous in game item but if you make full use of Fall to harvest as many as possible, you can round up a good profit. Happy blackberry picking!