Foraging & Mining

In: Game Mechanics

In Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar, foraging is the act of harvesting herbs, flowers, ores, and gems that you find in the wild. These items, collectively called forageables, can be used to upgrade your tools, make processed windmill items, and some can even be used as ingredients for cooking.

Our guide below will explain everything about the game’s foraging methods, locations where you can forage, respawn rules, weather effects, and special techniques to help you forage more effectively.

Table of Contents

Foraging Methods

Foraging is done through 4 main methods:

Ground Collection
Sickle Harvesting
Hoe Digging
Hatchet Mining

Each method yields different types of items that appear in different locations.

Ground Collection

Many items can be collected directly from the ground without needing any tools.

Each ground item you pick up by hand consumes ~5 stamina points.

Below is a list of all forageable items you can collect from the ground:

Item	Location	Season Availability
Walnut	Farm	All seasons except Autumn
Chestnut	Farm, Mountain Area	Autumn only
Medal Bronze Medal Silver Medal Gold Medal	All areas	All year
Shiitake Mushroom Shimeji Mushroom	Mountain Area	All year
Monarch Mushroom	Mountain Area	Autumn only (Cloudy days)

Tip: Medals on the ground are common and a solid early-game income source, but they often hide behind buildings or in corners. Check every nook when you’re wandering around foraging.

Sickle Harvesting

The Sickle lets you cut forageables growing from the ground, such as weeds, herbs, and wild flowers.

Just equip your Sickle and right-click any growing forageable to cut & collect it.

Item	Type	Season Availability
Weeds	Weed	All year
Mint	Herb	All year
Chamomile	Herb	Spring, Summer
Lavender	Herb	Autumn, Winter
Toy Flower Moondrop Flower Magic Blue Flower	Wild Flower	Spring
Pink Cat Flower	Wild Flower	Summer
Magic Red Flower	Wild Flower	Autumn

Hoe Digging

Your Hoe can dig up two types of spots: Dirt Mounds scattered across maps, and Field Plots within your fields.

Dirt Mounds

Dirt Mounds appear as small raised soil bumps on the ground. You can dig them up with your Hoe to uncover buried items.

These mounds spawn across all maps and reset daily.

Farm Fields

Your farm’s Field Plots can also yield items when tilled with the Hoe. Each field allows up to five items to be dug up per day.

Tip: It can be worth setting aside a small section of your field’s farmable land for daily digging. Tilling each day can provide a steady supply of medals, and occasionally a rare gem.

Diggable Items

Below is a list of all the items you can dig up from dirt mounds and field plots.

Item	Dirt Mounds		Field Plots
Item	Rarity	Location	Condition	Drop Quantity
Rock	Common	All locations	Any	1 or 3
Medal	Rare	All locations	Any	1 or 3
Bronze Medal	Rare	All locations	Any	1 or 3
Silver Medal	Very Rare	All locations	Any	1 or 3
Gold Medal	Very Rare	All locations	Any	1 or 3
Moonstone Peridot Amethyst Topaz Emerald Ruby	Very Rare	Farm	–	–
Diamond	Very Rare	Farm	Wind Level 2	1
Pink Diamond	Very Rare	Farm, Mountain Area	–	–
Power Berry	Very Rare	Zephyr Town	Wind Level 0-1	1
Fluorite	Rare	Zephyr Town	Any	1 or 3
Agate	Rare	Mountain Area	Any	1 or 3
Sandrose	Rare	Equestrian Park	Any	1 or 3

Hatchet Mining

The Hatchet is used to break up wooden logs, rocks, and ore nodes.

While any Hatchet can handle wooden logs and rocks, upgrading your hatchet allows you to mine higher-tier nodes that drop rarer ores and gemstones.

Below is a list of all the ore node levels in the game, along with all the items they can drop & the minimum Hatchet level needed to mine them.

Ore Node	Required Hatchet Level	Forageables
Copper Ore Node	Any	Rock Iron Copper Moonstone
Silver Ore Node	Copper Hatchet	Rock Iron Copper Silver Peridot Topaz
Gold Ore Node	Silver Hatchet	Rock Iron Copper Silver Gold Ruby Emerald Amethyst
Orichalcum Ore Node	Gold Hatchet	Iron Copper Silver Gold Orichalcum Diamond
Mithril Ore Node	Orichalcum Hatchet	Iron Copper Silver Gold Orichalcum Mithril Pink Diamond

Tip: Trying to break a node your Hatchet isn’t able to break will still consume Stamina! So make sure your tool is properly upgraded before targeting high-tier nodes.

Foraging Areas

As the game progresses, new maps become accessible, and each comes with different forageables.

We’ve summarized the main forageable areas below:

Location	Overview
Farm	Available from Day 1. Most accessible foraging area. Dirt Mounds here have the best gem variety
Zephyr Town	Includes hidden spots behind buildings and elevated platforms
Mountain Area	Unlocked at Bazaar Rank 2. Has a high density of ore nodes
Equestrian Park	Available from Year 1, Summer 14, it’s a prime spot for gathering weeds and gold ore nodes.

Mining Node Spawn Locations

Ore node spots change with each season.

When a new season starts, nodes will appear in different spots, and different types of ore nodes can show up.

We’ve created maps below for each season, with markers to denote where ore nodes spawn during those seasons & which types of nodes spawn in those areas. And while these maps can show the possible node locations, the total number of nodes that spawn may vary depending on weather, wind level, and RNG.

Node Symbol	Spawn Type
	Copper Ore Node
	Silver Ore Node
	Gold Ore Node
	Orichalcum Ore Node
	Mithril Ore Node

Zephyr Town Nodes

Season	Map
Spring
Summer
Autumn
Winter

Mountain Area Nodes

Season	Map
Spring
Summer
Autumn
Winter

Equestrian Park Nodes

Equestrian Park (All Seasons)

Tip: Silver can be harder to come by early on, so prioritize mining Silver Ore Nodes (or higher) to stock up while you can.

Jumping & Gliding Spots

Rare ore nodes often appear on high ledges or on isolated islands, which can only be reached using the Double Jump Technique and the Glider.

Double Jump is available for 10,000G at Felix’s Fixings, while the Glider is automatically unlocked after completing the “Meeting the Nature Sprites” story event.

Below we’ve listed various tricky-to-reach locations with screenshots to guide you on how to reach them.

Zephyr Town Map

Label	Spot	How to Reach
a	Behind the Yellow Windmill	From the rock behind the trees, Double Jump left to the upper ledge. Alternate Route: From behind the Yellow Windmill, double jump and glide across the river.
b	West of Isaac and Nadine’s House	Double jump on the ledges to reach the top.
c	East of Jules and Derek’s House	Step 1: Jump onto the barrel to access Jules and Derek’s roof. Step 2: From the roof ridge, Double Jump to the ledge on the right.
d	Behind Gabriel’s House	From the flowerbed near the Fountain, double jump to the right ledge behind Gabriel’s House. Alternate Route: Jump a barrel to reach Diana’s roof, then cross to the hotel roof. From the hotel’s far-right edge, glide to the ledge behind Gabriel’s House.
e	The Nature Sprites Home	Step 1: Jump across the small islets until you reach the one with a barrel, then jump on it. Step 2: At the peak of your barrel jump, glide to the far-right ledge (Wind Level 2+ is required to reach the ledge). Tip: From the top of the cliff, you can also drop down to the lower ledge behind Gabriel’s house.

Mountain Area Map

Label	Spot	How to Reach
a	Left Island	Double jump across the river. Note: Inaccessible on hurricane or blizzard days, as strong winds can push you into the pond.
b	Right Highland	From the lower right edge of the mountain summit, Double Jump and glide right (Wind Level 1+ required).

One-Time Item Collection Spots

Throughout specific areas on the map, certain signboards and landmarks each have one forageable item per save file.

You will get Gold Medals from these spots, so they’re definitely worth tracking down.

Location	Image
Zephyr Town – Farm Sign
Zephyr Town – Clock Tower
Zephyr Town – Bazaar Sign
Bazaar Grounds – Felix’s Bronze Statue

Respawn Mechanics

Foraged items respawn at the start of each day, and after 5:00PM.

Map transitions also affect respawns, so if you enter a different map after 5:00 PM, that specific map will refresh its forageables one more time.

Tip: The 5PM refresh requires a loading screen to occur, so if you don’t see new forageables appear at 5:00PM, try moving to a different area and back (such as in and out of the mountains or farm) to check again.

If you still have stamina left then it’s worth doing a second sweep around the Mountain after 5 PM.

Weather and Wind Power

Daily Weather and Wind Power affect your Glider speed, and they also determine how many forageables will spawn the following day after the weather ends.

Below is a small table summarizing forageable spawn volumes:

Weather / Wind	Forageables Spawn Rate
Wind Level 2	Slightly more forageable items spawn
Heavy Rain	More dirt mounds around the map
Hurricane / Blizzard (Wind Level 3)	Substantially more forageable items spawn; ore nodes can also appear in unusual locations

Increasing Forageable Item Quality

You will need to share forageable items with Nature Sprite Ivy to improve all forageable item quality. This is part of the Nature Sprite leveling mechanic, where certain items can only increase in quality when you give them to a specific Nature Sprite.

Ivy accepts all foraged items including weeds, wood, ores, gemstones, wild flowers, and herbs.

As your Forageables Sprite Level rises, the quality level of all foraged and mined items increases.

Tip: Ivy can usually be found near the Red Windmill on your farm on non-festival days.

Horseback Foraging Techniques

On Year 1, Summer 14, Ramon gives you a free horse.

Afterwards, Horseback Foraging Techniques can be bought at Felix’s Fixings, letting you forage on horseback with zero Stamina and no tool switching.

There are only two horseback techniques you can use for foraging, and the 2nd one only becomes available in the post-game at Bazaar Rank 70.

Technique	Cost	Requirement	Description
Horseback Foraging Technique	500,000G	Bazaar Rank 6+	Left-click to forage while riding the horse (costs 0 Stamina)
Horseback Foraging Advanced	12,000,000G	Bazaar Rank 70+; must own Horseback Foraging Technique	Your horse automatically forages nearby items (costs 0 Stamina)

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