When you arrive on Ginger Island in Stardew Valley 1.5, there’s so much more to do. The game has a new volcanic zone that has new NPCs and quests to complete. Tons of exotic fruits and crops, like pineapples, mangos, and bananas are also on the new island. One new extremely rare item is incredibly useful. That item is the Fairy Dust. Here’s a guide on how to unlock the Fairy Dust recipe and what you can do with it.
To unlock the new recipe, you need to complete some other steps. First up, you need to obtain a very specific item from a side quest, the Pirate’s Locket. Here’s how to do that.
How to complete the Pirate’s Wife Quest
To complete this quest, you’ll have to grind out a lot of item. You need to trade with many different villagers to the War Momento. This is gotten from Birdie, but first you need to rebuild the bridge and free Professor Snail. When you talk to Birdie the parrot after this, he should give you the item. You will find this on the west side of the island, in case you’re lost.
After that, it’s time for a great deal of trading amongst the other villagers in Stardew Valley. Head back to the main town and talk to villagers. There’s a very specific order you need to trade items in to finish this quest, so here it is:
- Visit Kent to give him the War Memento, and you get the Gourmet Tomato Salt
- Visit Gus to give him Gourmet Tomato Salt, and you get a Stardew Valley Rose
- Visit Sandy to give her the Stardew Valley Rose, and you get en Advanced TV Remote
- Visit George to give him the Advanced TV Remote, and you get the Artic Shard
- Visit the Wizard to give him the Artic Shard, and you get a Wiggling Worm
- Visit Willy to give him the Wiggling Worm, and you get a Pirate’s Locket
You then need to take the boat back to Ginger Island, and meet up with Birdie again. You should get a cutscene as long as you have the Pirate’s Locket in your inventory. When that scene finishes, Birdie unlocks the Fairy Dust recipe, and you receive five golden walnuts.
The Fairy Dust recipe isn’t easy to craft, so it’s meant to be used sparingly, otherwise it would destroy game balance. If you do get some of it, the effect is quite useful. It’s an instant speed-up for any crafting process on your farm. So if you’re making some ultra high-quality Wine from Ancient Fruit, you can use Fairy Dust to instantly complete the process. The only way to do this previously was to cheat, so it’s a nice way to use up some resources late-game.
You need one Fairy Rose and one Diamond to make it.
The Fairy Rose is best obtained through seeds and growing them. You can possibly get some from Pierre’s Store, the Night Market, the Traveling Cart if you’re lucky. It’s a Fall item with 12 day growth time, so check these sources during that time. Although it only spawns at the Night Market on Winter 17.
The Diamonds can be found in the deeper parts of the mine from Geodes, and potentially as very rare drops. A Diamond may be dropped by a Red, Purple, Copper, or Iron Slime, or a Duggy. A Wilderness Golem may also rarely drop a diamond (0.1% chance).
