Details about the Greenhouse in Sunshine Islands

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The Greenhouse is an advanced option in many Harvest Moon games, including Sunshine Islands, that allows you to grow crops out of season. In HM DS and Cute DS, where water and sunlight had no specific individual requirements where Crops were concerned, the need for the 'Basements' that were the equivalent of a Greenhouse was not as great as it is in Island of Happiness and Sunshine Islands. In IoH and SI, the fact that weather can prove your undoing in terms of Crops that require either 'less' or 'more' Sunlight and/or Water makes the Greenhouse almost a necessity.

I had imagined that the Greenhouse option in both games would be the same but that is not quite true. The option IS expensive in both games... but in Sunshine Islands, you actually can add more than one Sun Box to further speed the growth of seasonal Crops.

In Island of Happiness, the Greenhouse actually is built on your original Field. In Sunshine Islands, however, it is built on Greenhouse Island, which is reached via a bridge from Link Island, reached via a Bridge from your Farm. This is true with respect to all three 'special farming' islands: Greenhouse Island, Rice Island and Fruit Island.

If you neither have a Teleport Stone nor Turbo Shoes, you will find yourself at a loss to visit Fruit Island and/or Greenhouse Island on a daily basis. As far as Rice Island is concerned, Rice once planted in Spring tends to itself and you need not visit THAT Island again until Autumn when the grain is mature and ready to be harvested.

The fact that the Greenhouse is located on a different Island has a rather cruel effect in Sunshine Islands which is to deny you any water source closer than the one located in the southwest corner of your Field. In Sunshine Islands, you cannot take water from the shore of the Island, as it is saltwater and would kill your Crops and Grains.

You therefore need to order a Water Spigot for the Greenhouse as soon as possible.

The cost is:

Add Water Spigot:
400 Lumber + 500000G
or 550000G

The cost of the addition of another Sun Box is:

Add Sun Box:
200 Lumber + 900000G
or 920000G

To me, the addition of a Shipping Bin is the least necessary of all options, but it is the least expensive as well as the cost for one is:

Add Shipping Bin:
200 Lumber + 1000G
or 15000G

Remember that, in Sunshine Islands, you can order an Enchantment either to reduce Prices or to reduce amount of Materials required or both.

As in Island of Happiness, the Greenhouse can be upgraded. The cost of the initial upgrade is:

Upgrade:
9000 Lumber + 500000G
or 999000G

These prices are not for the faint of heart and a player who slaved away to finally scrape together the amount needed to order a Greenhouse (even with a Green Team discount) without knowing what would be required afterwards may be dismayed to discover the price of these options. Even so, it gives the veteran players another challenge to surmount...

Once you have a Greenhouse, you cannot expect that farming will be nothing more than a matter of flinging your seeds onto tilled soil. Considerations of specific Water requirements for both Crops and Grains as well as seasonal requirements for harvesting Grains still apply. Knowing when to place a specific Seasonal Sun and how to prevent the loss of Grains that must be harvested in Summer is vital.

Incidentally, the acreage in the initial Greenhouse consists of 16 squares by 8 squares. What this means in terms of complete 3 x 3 plots is that you can fit a total of 10 in the Greenhouse. If, however, you are willing to sacrifice Seeds, you can grow more Crops in the remaining 'incomplete' plots. Another way of calculating space is to state that you have a total of 128 squares for farming. You can do as you wish with these... . Remember always that you will need to be able to REACH all the squares that you sow with seed. With sufficient Wonderfuls in your Watering Can, you will be able to reach all squares even if you do not leave space between Crops, and if you use your Stylus instead of traditional controls, you should be able to harvest all of them even in the case of multiple harvest Crops.

The actual configuration of the initial Greenhouse is set up to allow you to till your soil in eight 3 x 3 plots with a space between each on every side. My own procedure usually is to plant in unbroken rows with a single space between rows. In the Greenhouse, this planogram will give you four rows of 2 2/3 plots each. You therefore will waste 3 seeds out of 9 when you sow the final bag of Seeds in each row.

Tip: If you do not have a pair of Turbo Shoes by the time you obtain a Greenhouse, I would suggest that you invest in them as soon as possible. Even with a Teleport Stone, it will take 10 minutes to move from the Teleport destination on Link Island to the Greenhouse. When returning to the Ranch to refill your Watering Can, it will take 10 minutes to move from the Teleport destination of the Ranch (on the bridge) to the watering hole unless you are wearing Turbo Shoes. You will need 60 Orichalcum for Turbo Shoes.

Note that you can have more than one Watering Can in Sunshine Islands and can fill both before you go to the Greenhouse. If you do not have Wonderfuls set in both, however, they will have equal capacity in terms of 50 squares but will not water the squares with equal efficiency. You therefore may wish to go to Charlie to reorganise your Wonderfuls before you visit the Greenhouse... or not, as it is enough of a headache for me anyway, to switch my Orange Wonderfuls from Hammer or Axe to Milker each morning and back again... That's the limit of Wonderful Switching that I am willing to perform on a daily basis for the most part.

If you have only one Sun Box, you MUST keep the Summer Sun in place in order to grow Buckwheat or Soybeans until those Crops are harvested. You cannot 'switch' Suns in the Sun Box. To change from one Sun to another, you first must remove the existing Sun, leaving the Greenhouse without any Sun for a moment until you set the next Sun into the Box. Of the three Grains that can be grown in the Greenhouse, only Wheat will survive if you remove the Summer Sun and replace it with Autumn or Spring. WHEAT IS THE ONLY CROP THAT CAN ENDURE EITHER AN ABSENCE OR CHANGE IN SUNS IN THE GREENHOUSE.

You cannot sow seeds beneath the wrong seasonal Sun in the Greenhouse. As Soybeans and Buckwheat CAN grow during Autumn, you can sow them beneath an autumn Sun but if you remove that Sun in order to place a Summer Sun there in order to be able to harvest them, they will vanish instantly.

I have not grown any Grains to maturity yet in the Greenhouse in Sunshine Islands, but I have tested the ability to remove and replace the Seasonal Suns. Only Wheat survives that. In view of this, I do believe that my Island of Happiness Guidelines with respect to grains is equally applicable to Sunshine Islands.

From my Island of Happiness General Guide:


Tip for Growing Grains


For maximum success, grow all three ordinary Grains in your Greenhouse using a Summer Sun. You will be required to keep the Summer Sun in the Greenhouse for two seasons in order to be able to harvest Wheat and Soybeans, but both are crops that grow both in Summer and Autumn BUT CAN BE HARVESTED ONLY IN SUMMER. Changing your Sun from a Summer to an Autumn Sun will kill ALL Crops apart from Wheat, so do not do that. Simply plant Wheat, Soybeans and Buckwheat in the Greenhouse after placing a Summer Sun, then leave the Summer Sun in place until you have harvested all the Crops. If you plant them all at the same time, the Buckwheat will be ready for harvest first. In fact, Buckwheat requires less than a full season to grow. Soybeans and Wheat, on the other hand, require almost two.

As previously stated, you can water any Soybean Crop twice daily but do not water Wheat more than once every two days!

END OF GUIDE EXCERPT

One final difference between Island of Happiness and Sunshine Islands is that you cannot sow Fruit Trees in the Greenhouse. As a separate Island exists for Fruit Trees, that probably is the reason why this practice is disallowed. Unfortunately, this means that your Fruit Trees always will be subject to the vagaries of the Weather in Sunshine Islands. In Island of Happiness, however, you had to perform complex rotations of your Suns in the Greenhouse if you wished to harvest Fruit. Even so, the Fruit Trees grown in the Greenhouse were protected from the weather outside.

I need to scrape together enough money to order a second Sun Box before I relinquish Sunshine Islands to begin on Hero of Leaf Valley.

Another general Farming Tip is that you can leave mature Crops in your field to improve in Rank, Quality and Size as long as Water AND Sunllight requirements are not exceeded. This is one method by which to raise Rank from B to A as well as increasing size. Note that this is true with respect to items that grow in the Wilds as well. By leaving a coloured Herb on the ground for a day or two, it may go from B to A Rank. Even Seaweed left on the Rock at the Beach in Spring may improve from B to A Rank if you do not harvest it for a day or two. Although there is a limit to the number of items that can be placed on the ground, the game WILL drop more items the next day even if you have not harvested every item on the previous day.

Where multiple harvest Crops are concerned, I sometimes leave the Crop in the middle square in place in Sunshine Islands as long as possible to elevate it to S Rank. There is a point where the Crop will receive too much Sunlight or Water and wither, however. Always make certain to harvest it the night before this occurs.

Winning the Crop Festival in Island of Happiness

Until I began to play Island of Happiness, I considered myself a fairly good Farmer in the world of Harvest Moon. Island of Happiness reminded me of the danger of hubris, humbling me. It has taken me five years of farming on the Island to be able to state that I finally begin to comprehend farming.

Although I won my first two Crop Festivals in my first game, I actually lost a couple of seasonal Crop Festivals in later years in the same game. Whether you win or lose any given Crop Festival depends solely on the Rank and Quality of your entry. You must have an 'A' Rank Crop or higher to win.

The first challenge is to have access to the seeds needed to produce the Crop that is announced as the theme of the next Season's festival. In your first two years, the Theme in each season will be a crop that is available from the start of the game.
By the third year, however, you will be required to produce a Crop from seeds that must be unlocked. If you have not been able to unlock the Seeds for the Crop announced as the theme for the next Seasonal Crop Festival, you can obtain the Seeds in a slightly underhanded way. If you raised Wada's Friendship level to 7 Hearts by the start of the third year, he will allow you to gain access to his back garden where the 'Tower' stands. Here you will find Manfred and he will give you an item each day when you speak to him. The item is chosen randomly but by reloading your game, you can obtain the required Crop and feed it into your Seed Maker to produce the seeds you need.

The second challenge, once you have the seeds, is to grow the Crop successfully. In Island of Happiness, every Crop requires different care. Make certain that you pay attention to the description of the Seeds before you plant any crop. If you fail to remember the description, go to my Farming Guide for detailed information.

Every Crop has specific requirements in terms of Sunlight, Water and Time. Given more Sunlight, Crops tend to grow faster but some will die if they are exposed to too much Sunlight. No longer can you diligently water all your Crops daily and expect a successful harvest by virtue of doing so. There are Crops that require 'more' water than that and others that require 'less'. If a Crop requires 'more' water, you really need to water it twice daily in order to be able to obtain a good quality of harvest. If a Crop needs 'less' water, you need to abstain from watering it every other day.

As far as Sunlight and Water are concerned, you can control both variables by growing your Crops in the Greenhouse under an artificial Sun. If the Crop requires 'more' Sunlight, however, it may grow more slowly in the Greenhouse than it otherwise would grow in your Field, especially in the Summer season when fierce Sunlight is a common weather condition. Sunlight in the Greenhouse is provided at the rate of a single point per day. Fierce Sunlight, on the other hand, is worth 3 Points. Crops that require 'less' Sunlight may wither under a fierce sun but Tomatoes, requiring 'more' Sunlight, would thrive in your Field under such conditions.

Farming, therefore is a complex equation. A player posted a comment to the effect that tomatoes planted in the Greenhouse in preparation for the Summer Crop Contest
failed to mature in time for the Contest and only produced a Crop after the beginning of the Autumn season. The reason for this is the lesser number of Sunlight points given to any Crop grown in the Greenhouse. To be able to count on a harvest of Tomatoes for the Summer Crop Festival, therefore, the Summer Sun would need to be placed in the Greenhouse during the Spring Season and the Tomato Seeds planted then before Summer ever began.

Although I planned ahead in this fashion in my own game, growing Pineapples in my Greenhouse for the Summer Crop Festival, I foolishly forgot NOT to harvest them prematurely. When the day of the Summer Crop Festival arrived, there were no ripe Pineapples on my Greenhouse plants. The 'A' Rank Pineapples I had harvested a couple of days previously had deteriorated quickly to 'B' Rank in my ordinary Refrigerator and I was unable to win the Contest!

When Strawberries were the Theme of the Spring Crop Festival, I made the mistake of growing them only in my Field. An extremely wet Spring caused the death of every plant I had. I replanted immediately but alas, too late. The plants produced fruit before the end of Spring but one day AFTER the Spring Crop Festival. Once again, the Strawberries stored in my ordinary Refrigerator had lost their 'A' Rank...

These are arguments in favour of obtaining a Mythic Refrigerator, of course. With a Mythic Refrigerator, your Crops never lose their Rank, Quality or Freshness. The actual monetary cost of the Mythic Refrigerator is the same as that of the Quality Improver. Each costs 5,000,000G. The primary difference between the two is the shipping value of the materials used to create each. Mythic Stones ship for a minimum of 10,000G each. Adamantite, on the other hand, is not particularly valuable. Ship the first large quantity of Mythic Stone you obtain and you will have enough money for the Quality Improver. Once you have the Quality Improver, you items stored within will not lose their Rank or Quality and even will increase in quality gradually.

Remember that Orange Wonderfuls set in your Hammer increase your yield each time you smash a rock in the Mine. A total of 9 Orange Wonderfuls can be set in a Hammer, allowing you to obtain 10 Mythic Stones each time you smash a rock that contains one.
You should be able to obtain at least 5 Mythic Stones if no Orange Wonderfuls are set in your Hammer each time you visit Floor 100 of the Mine. With 9 Orange Wonderfuls in your Hammer, you can obtain at least 50 Mythic Stones on Floor 100 alone. If you descend to Floor 255, you should be able to collect 50 more between Floor 250 and Floor 255.

Until you have 9 Orange Wonderfuls in your Hammer, your yield will be less, but even a few Mythic Stones from the mine will increase your income significantly early in the game.

Surprising Responses in Island of Happiness

There are Subsidiary Farming Characters in Island of Happiness who profess to harbour an obsession with a specific Crop. In Rachel's case, the crop is the Turnip.
In Amy's case, it is the Yam.

For those who imagine that Harvest Moon games ever could be anything but subtle and complex, these two characters provide evidence to the contrary. Even veterans of Harvest Moon games need to be on their guard at all times with respect to characters. Never assume anything...

For example, with respect to Raquel and Amy, one might be led to believe that a gift of the Crop for which they profess a great obsession would be met 'with music' or at least some measure of joy. On the contrary, a gift of a Turip to Raquel or Yam to Amy is NOT advised.

In Raquel's Introduction, she will tell you:
Raquel: This place is fantabulous! It’s peachy-keen! IT’S THE BEE’S KNEES! Oh… umm… pardon me. I get a little overexcited sometimes. I’m Raquel. I work on a farm out by a city, but I’m on vacation! And vacations are DYNAMITE! You know what else is great? TURNIPS! Turnips are terrific! THEY’RE OFF THE HOOK! Oh… sorry. *ahem* Anyway, it’s super-awesome to meet you.

Then: Turnips are a Spring crop. Isn’t that AWESOME?!

Give her a Turnip of any Rank or Quality and she will tell you: This is… For the first time ever, I’m just not very excited…

In Amy's Introduction:

Amy: Hi! I’m Amy. I came here to see how you’ve been shipping such great fruit lately.
My real passion is yams, though. I’m OBSESSED with them. Is that weird?

Then: Yams grow fast, and can be harvested many times. They don’t sell for a lot, though.'

Give her a Yam of ANY Rank and Quality and she will respond: Hey, this is terrible…

In the circumstances, even a common Branch or Stone would make a better gift. For a Branch, Raquel will wax enthusiastic: 'This is KEEN! It's ACES! IT ROCKS THE HOUSE DOWN! Thank you.' For a Stone, Amy will respond (with music): Are you sure? Thanks a lot!

Incidentally, in none of these cases is the response a special reply designated solely for the 'special' item. It is the character's negative response to ANY item she dislikes.

I had given the Turnip to Raquel and Yam to Amy as an experiment, to see if either would elicit some extraordinary response or bit of secret, useful information... I was taken aback to discover that in both cases, the character detested the item.

As far as Subsidiary Characters are concerned, I had thought initially that shipping the item on a regular basis that brought them to the Island in the first place might suffice to keep them there, but this is not the case. What is most vital is to speak to every individual on a regular basis. Ignore Subsidiary Characters and they will leave in droves... They do return after a full season passes, so the damage is not irreparable, but every aspect of Island of Happiness definitely is more demanding perhaps than any other Harvest Moon game.

One could compare the Subsidiary Characters to the Sprites in HM DS/Cute DS to some extent. After all, there were methods by which each Sprite could be 'rescued'; in Island of Happiness, this could be compared to the requirement that needs to be met in order to bring a Subsidiary Character to the Island. Harvest Sprites once rescued would not disappear again, however. Furthermore, one could go to the Sprite Company Tree to leave gifts for almost every Sprite in his post box in order to increase friendship levels.

In Island of Happiness, although it is possible to find many of the Subsidiary Characters at one of the two Inns either in the morning or at night, this is not always the case. There are characters who appear only in a sometimes quite remote location for only a few hours each day... Finding a new arrival can be a sort of Treasure Hunt in that respect.

Nor can you 'rest on your laurels' in Island of Happiness. For a start, every seasonal Crop Festival features a different Crop. You need to grow an 'A' Rank crop of the specified variety if you wish to win the Contest. Unless you grow all Crops in your Greenhouse, you always will be threatened by the vagaries of the weather. In the year when 'the Strawberry' had been chosen for the Spring Crop Festival, I lost ALL the Strawberries I had been growing in my Field because of extreme weather conditions. Although the Strawberry is one Crop that requires only 'Normal' Light, it does insist upon 'Less' Sunlight... One really cannot control the weather effectively in Island of Happiness as it is determined six days in advance.

In future, I shall advise all players that do not own a Mythic Stone Refrigerator yet to grow the Crop that has been chosen for the Seasonal Crop Festival in the Greenhouse if they wish to guarantee that they will be able to produce an 'A' Rank of that Crop. 'B' Rank Crops will not win any Crop Festival Contest. Even though I had Strawberries in my Fridge that had been harvested as 'A' Crops earlier that Spring, they had deteriorated to 'B' Rank. The plots of Strawberries in my field were destroyed by an excess of Water or Sunlight only a few days before the Festival. New strawberry plants did not ripen in time for the Contest.

Success in farming requires a very fine balance in Island of Happiness. You can leave a Crop in the ground to grow further and gain potentially in terms of Rank but you have to make certain that it is not overloaded either with Sunlight or with Water! You can store Crops for future use at a Contest but if you do not have a Mythic Refrigerator, you must hope that their Rank does not deteriorate before they are needed.

I have not had the best of luck with my Fruit Trees either. Every single Apple Tree I planted initially was wiped out in one of the many Typhoons or Snowstorms that my character was obliged to weather.

In other Harvest Moon games, although Typhoons and Snowstorms may occur, they are not that probable. The odds are fairly remote usually. In Island of Happiness, on the other hand, I have experienced both Typhoons and Snowstorms on four consecutive days! That can be brutal...

There is something to be said for a game that is as challenging as Island of Happiness, however. One can reach the fourth or fifth year of the game without having achieved every possible goal. As stated, I was unable to harvest the humble Apple in the first couple of years, although I had many Peaches and even Bananas!

One of my last farming experiments is an attempt to grow Fruit Trees in the Greenhouse. I have been able to grow all Grains in the Greenhouse, but I wonder if a Fruit Tree actually can be made to yield Fruit. When it is fully grown, I intend to set the appropriate Sun in the Greenhouse to see if it will begin to produce Fruit. The problem with a Fruit Tree with respect to Greenhouse production in Harvest Moon is that it requires a specific season to flower and the next season to produce Fruit. It will be interesting to discover if it can be induced to produce Fruit beneath the artificial 'Suns'.

And finally, a Buckwheat Harvest in IoH

I should have had my first Buckwheat Harvest long ago in Island of Happiness. Stupidly, two plots of fully ripened Buckwheat confronted me for a few days before the crop vanished completely. As I confessed in a previous post, I had forgotten that Buckwheat, like all Crops in IoH, had to be harvested with a Sickle.

Well, the first game seldom is a 'perfect' game. My next game will be...

Meanwhile, I finally had my first Buckwheat Harvest, one day after harvesting Wheat and Soybeans from my Greenhouse. I have included screenshots here of fully ripened Buckwheat as well as Buckwheat at the first stage of growth.

A screenshot of the early flowering stage is included as well. At this stage, when the flowers are light pink, you CANNOT harvest the Buckwheat!

Incidentally, I now have included a few screenshots in my Island of Happiness Farming Guide. (Links to ALL my Guides to be found on the right side of this page as always.) I always resisted the idea of adding screenshots to my Guides in the past, as I wanted them to be accessible to ALL players, including those with very slow internet connections, but the Grains in IoH really require screenshots at their different stages. If players find the screenshots helpful, I may add more to my Guides in the future. I usually take thousands of screenshots whenever I play any Harvest Moon game but until I created this webpage, no one saw them but me.

Thanks for the Input from Players on the Gender Theories

First, I want to thank every one who went to the trouble to post their findings with respect to the odd/even theory relating to your child's gender in HM Cute DS. It probably is random. After all, there is so much in Harvest Moon that IS determined randomly. One need only think of the appearance of any Cursed Tool or Cursed Accessory in the Mines in HM DS/Cute DS. Although they always will be found only on the floors specified by the game, you may not find them at all, visiting one of those floors 20 times. In another game, or on another day, you may find one the first time you visit one of the specified floors.

For the time being, in view of the data that players have posted, I would conclude that the gender of your child in HM Cute DS, alas, is random. In many situations, it is no more than coincidence when the same result occurs again and again in a game. I myself have been seduced into believing that a result depended on specific actions when it occurred again and again after meeting the requirements I had presupposed... only to discover later that it was random! I know many careful players who log all their actions and results as I do and then proceed to postulate a complex series of requirements for a result based on coincidence. We can be TOO clever sometimes.

The philosophical intention of Harvest Moon games is to create a REAL life, where Nature can behave randomly, where good fortune sometimes will follow you and sometimes will abandon you... We try to 'cheat' the game by finding exploitations and succeed in doing so, but it goes against the actual intention of the makers of these games. I always try to control the weather in my Harvest Moon games and this can be achieved very easily in games from the past, including FoMT/MFoMT and HM DS/Cute DS. All you have to do is save your game before you go to bed. When you awaken in the morning, listen to the weather prediction before you save again. If weather that is contrary to your own desires is predicted, simply reload and try again...

Well, Island of Happiness has sewn up THAT loophole now. Weather is determined 6 days in advance! How many players are going to play forward six days every night before midnight to see if Taro predicts a Typhoon or Snowstorm? Is it worth the effort? I couldn't be bothered in my game... I let those storms rip, when I never did so in other HM games when they could be avoided.

In fact, although weather is set 6 days in advance in IoH, the results are determined only at the time of the storm. Go outside after any storm to see what has been destroyed before you save your game. If your best trees or rare crops have been destroyed, for example, simply reload and try again... This mitigates the horror of being forced to endure a terrible typhoon or snowstorm in IoH. Furthermore, so far, I have not experienced the actual collapse of an Animal Barn/Chicken Coop or Greenhouse. I would need to confirm this with Natsume before I could state it as a categorical truth, however.

There is another random result in IoH that some players have not realised IS random. The appearance of Wonderfuls in Chen's Market during the Winter season may be based on a requirement that the last digit in your earnings is a 5, but even if you meet the requirement, the actual appearance of the Wonderful IS random. The colour of the Wonderful if and when it is offered is set according to a schedule, however. You therefore have two set conditions and one random effect in this situation.

As this post contains quite a lot of random information, I am going to add to it with the information that two guides for Island of Happiness have been sent to IGN. The links will be found on the right side of this page. Unfortunately, my own laptop has been sent off to a repair technician and my files are in disarray, so these guides need to be updated considerably, but it is a start. My Recipe Cookbook Guide and my Characters Guide will be published later today or tomorrow. ALL guides will be updated regularly as IGN is kind enough to allow that. I always feel it is better for players to have a basic guide as soon as possible, and I then add to that as I can. I am only one person and I have to play the games extensively as well as writing copiously in order to create these guides...

In other words, many more sections will be added to the General Guide and the text of all Heart Events and Rival Heart Events as well as all alternate Heart Events will be added to the Courtship and Marriage Guide. All the information is in my game journals, but it needs to be edited and transferred to the guides.

Finally, two offers:

I have another Harvest Moon webpage where I post stories about Harvest Moon written by fans. They must be based on an actual event in any Harvest Moon game. If any one wishes to email me a story, please do. I will post the best of them on the site.

We Love Harvest Moon

This morning, I realised it would be really interesting if devoted Harvest Moon fans shared their favourite event in ANY Harvest Moon game. I am creating a webpage, 'Favourite Harvest Moon Events'. Share as many as you like. You can add them as comments or send them as emails so I can add them as actual posts on the site.

Harvest Moon Favourite Events