Golden Walnuts are Ginger Island’s real currency. Parrots trade them for new areas, shortcuts, and the endgame systems that sit behind Qi’s Walnut Room. There are 130 in total; 116 pay for every parrot upgrade, and the rest can be turned into Qi Gems.
Walnuts are shared across multiplayer, tracked under your name on the Skills tab, and they only ever appear on Ginger Island or inside Golden Coconuts cracked at the Blacksmith in Pelican Town.
How Golden Walnuts are obtained
Walnuts come from two broad buckets: guaranteed locations and RNG drops tied to everyday actions. The table below summarizes all repeatable actions and how many walnuts they can yield:
| Action | Cap | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Fishing anywhere on Ginger Island | 5 | Each cast has a 15% chance to hook a walnut until five have dropped. |
| Harvesting crops on the Island Farm | 5 | 5% chance per harvested, non-regrowing crop that is normally picked by hand; regrowers and scythe-only crops do not qualify. |
| Breaking Mussel Nodes on the west beach | 5 | Each node has a 10% chance to drop a walnut until five have appeared. |
| Killing Tiger Slimes in Tiger Slime Grove (west) | 1 | One walnut total from Tiger Slime kills in the grove. |
| Breaking rocks in the Volcano Dungeon | 5 | Random drops while mining any rock inside the dungeon. |
| Killing monsters in the Volcano Dungeon | 5 | Random drops from any enemy inside the dungeon. |
| Breaking metal crates in the Volcano Dungeon | 5 | Random drops while smashing metal crates. |
| Opening a normal chest in the Volcano Dungeon | 1 | One walnut from any common dungeon chest. |
| Opening a rare chest in the Volcano Dungeon | 1 | One walnut from any red-banded rare chest. |
| Cracking Golden Coconuts at the Blacksmith | 1 | The first Golden Coconut Clint opens always contains a walnut. |
| Completing “The Pirate’s Wife” quest | 5 | Rewarded on returning the Pirate’s Locket to Birdie. |
Everything else is fixed: shake a specific bush, dig a precise tile, or solve a puzzle once, and that walnut is gone forever.
Parrot hints and the Golden Joja Parrot
One parrot acts like an island-wide hint system. After you give your first walnut to the parrot inside Leo’s hut in the jungle, it will squawk one hint each day that points toward unfound walnuts. Hints dynamically update as you collect them; once you clear all walnuts tied to a specific hint, that line disappears from the rotation.
Leo’s parrot will lead you to 123 of the 130 walnuts. It never hints at:
- The walnut bush at the south edge of the Gem Birds shrine area in the east jungle.
- The three walnuts from offering a Banana at the altar by Leo’s stairs.
- The three walnuts from winning darts at Pirate Cove.
The 1.6 update adds a second, much blunter bird: the Golden Joja Parrot. It perches on the cliff west of the Volcano Dungeon entrance. Pay it 10,000g for each missing walnut, and it simply grants all remaining walnuts after you sleep that night. Once you’ve bought every normal parrot upgrade, spare walnuts can instead be exchanged in Qi’s Walnut Room for Qi Gems at a rate of two gems per nut.
Parrot upgrades and walnut costs
Golden Walnuts unlock almost every layer of Ginger Island. These are the parrot “purchases” and how many nuts each one takes:
| Upgrade | Location | Cost (walnuts) | What it unlocks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ginger Island North | Parrot in Leo’s hut | 1 | Opens the northern area with the Volcano Dungeon, Island Trader, and Dig Site. |
| Ginger Island West | Parrot on starting beach (south) | 10 | Opens the west side with the Island Farm, Qi’s Walnut Room, and Pirate’s Wife quest. |
| Island Farmhouse | Parrot at the farmhouse ruins (west) | 20 | Repairs the house so you can sleep on the island. |
| Farmhouse Mailbox | Parrot at the repaired farmhouse | 5 | Adds a mailbox so you can read mail from the island. |
| Farm Obelisk | Parrot at the repaired farmhouse | 20 | Teleports you back to your main farm. |
| Island Dig Site bridge | Parrot near the broken bridge (north) | 10 | Repairs access to the Dig Site and Professor Snail’s cave. |
| Island Trader | Parrot by the trader’s stand (north) | 10 | Opens the Island Trader shop. |
| Volcano bridge | Parrot by the lava river (volcano entrance) | 5 | Places a permanent bridge across the entrance lava so you no longer need a watering can to enter. |
| Volcano exit shortcut | Parrot on level 5 inside the Volcano Dungeon | 5 | Opens an exit back to Island North from the mid-dungeon. |
| Island Resort | Parrot on the southern beach | 20 | Builds the beach resort, opens Island Southeast and Pirate Cove, and lets valley NPCs visit. |
| Parrot Express | Parrot at the starting beach | 10 | Enables fast travel stations around Ginger Island. |
| Qi Gem exchange | Parrot in Qi’s Walnut Room | 1 → 2 Qi Gems | Only after every other upgrade is purchased. |
Qi’s Walnut Room itself opens after you have found 100 walnuts. Internally, the game doesn’t count the very first walnut you ever pick up, so in practice you need to have collected 101.
Walnuts found anywhere on the island
A handful of walnuts can drop regardless of where you are:
- Fishing: Up to five from fishing anywhere off the island’s coasts or inland ponds.
- Golden Cocunut: The very first Golden Coconut you have Clint crack at the Blacksmith always contains one walnut.
After that guaranteed coconut drop, later Golden Coconuts can still hide other rewards, including a Fossilized Skull and Banana Saplings, but they no longer guarantee a walnut.
Ginger Island East (jungle and Gem Birds area)
The east side is the first zone you see after landing. Initially it’s just the jungle path to Leo, but it already hides multiple walnuts and two important puzzles.
| Count | Type | Location / action |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bush | Shake the walnut bush on the main jungle path toward Leo’s hut. |
| 1 | Tree | Inside Leo’s hut, hit the small tree with an axe to knock out a walnut. |
| 3 | Offering | Place a Banana on the stone altar to the left of the stairs up to Leo’s hut; a gorilla appears and hands over three walnuts. |
| 1 | Bush (hidden path) | From the foot of Leo’s stairs, follow the stepping stones right into a hidden alcove; shake the bush at the bottom edge of the Gem Bird shrine clearing. |
| 5 | Puzzle (Gem Birds) | On rainy days, a colored bird appears in one island quadrant, drops a gemstone, and flies off. Place each gem on the matching pedestal at the Gem Bird shrine near Leo’s hut (pillars correspond to north, south, east, west of the island). When all four are correct, five walnuts appear. |
Leo’s parrot does not comment on the southern bush in the shrine area, the Banana offering, or the dart game described later, so those are easy to miss if you lean only on hints.
Ginger Island North (Volcano, Dig Site, Island Trader)
North is where the Volcano Dungeon lives, along with the Dig Site and Professor Snail’s field office. Several walnuts are simply buried in marked tiles; others come from fossils and surveys.
Surface walnuts in Island North
| Count | Type | Location / action |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Buried | Just above the stairs from the beach into Island North, dig the center of a stone ring on the left. |
| 1 | Bush (hidden path) | From the same entrance, step left into a hidden grove behind the bushes and shake the walnut bush. |
| 1 | Buried | Still near that entrance, dig the center of a small flower ring in the grass. |
| 1 | Buried | Further northeast, dig the center of a circular ring of stones in the grass. |
| 1 | Buried | South-east of the Island Field Office tent, dig in the slightly discolored patch of sand. |
| 1 | Buried | Up the steps at the Dig Site, dig the center of the stone ring near the cliff. |
| 1 | Bush | From that upper Dig Site platform, cross the bridge west to a walnut bush. |
| 2 | Bushes (secret passage) | From the same upper platform, go east through the hidden gap in the cliff, cross the rope bridge, and shake the two bushes. |
| 1 | Bush (hidden) | South-east of the Volcano entrance, a walnut bush is tucked behind a palm tree. |
| 1 | Buried | Just east of the Volcano entrance, dig in the sand ringed by two bushes and a curved arc of stones. |
| 1 | Slingshot | Northeast of the entrance, shoot the bent tree protruding from the Volcano wall with any slingshot to knock down a walnut. |
Journal scrap and cliff-top walnuts
| Count | Requirement | Location / action |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Journal Scrap #10 | South-west of the Volcano entrance, dig the tile inside the loop of a curved palm tree growing out of the cliff; also yields an Ostrich Egg. |
| 1 | None | At the far north-west cliff overlooking the ocean (where Leo sometimes stands), dig the center of a stone circle. |
| 1 | None | From that cliff, walk west along the top wall and slip into a hidden notch north; a secluded bush holds a walnut. |
Volcano Dungeon and forge access walnuts
| Count | Method | Location / action |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Mining | Random from breaking rocks inside the Volcano Dungeon. |
| 5 | Combat | Random from killing any dungeon monster. |
| 5 | Crates | Random from smashing metal crates. |
| 1 | Chest | One walnut from a standard (brown) chest in the dungeon. |
| 1 | Chest | One walnut from a rare chest (with a red stripe). |
| 2 | Bushes (Forge) | At the Forge level at the top of the dungeon, shake the bushes at the entrance and exit for one each. |
| 2 | Secret exit | At the lava river on level 1, water a path west and then south to a side exit. Outside, two bushes hold one walnut each. |
Island Field Office fossils and surveys
Freeing Professor Snail from the bomb-blocked cave at the Dig Site opens his field office tent, which hides a large share of north-side walnuts.
| Set / task | Pieces and where they spawn | Walnuts |
|---|---|---|
| Large animal fossil | Fossilized Leg (Bone Nodes at Dig Site); Fossilized Ribs (Bone Nodes or Dig Site artifact spots); Fossilized Skull (inside a Golden Coconut); Fossilized Spine (fishing in Dig Site river or digging artifact spots on the southern beach); Fossilized Tail (panning in the Dig Site river). | 6 |
| Snake fossil | Snake Skull (artifact spots at the Dig Site or west side, or fishing off the west beach); Snake Vertebrae ×2 (artifact spots on the west side farm area). | 3 |
| Mummified Frog | Cutting weeds in the jungle around Leo’s hut. | 1 |
| Mummified Bat | Breaking rocks inside the Volcano Dungeon. | 1 |
| Survey: purple flowers | Answer “22” at the survey board in the tent. | 1 |
| Survey: purple starfish | Answer “18” at the survey board in the tent. | 1 |
Completing all fossil donations also unlocks the Ostrich Incubator recipe and provides Banana and Mango Saplings as side rewards.
Ginger Island West (farm, Qi’s Walnut Room, Pirate’s Wife)
The west side of the island is dense with walnuts and is also where long-running tasks live: the Island Farm, the Gourmand Frog, and the Pirate’s Wife quest.
Beach, shipwreck, and mussel node walnuts
| Count | Type | Location / action |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Mining | From the beach under the Island Farm, mine Mussel Nodes until five walnuts have dropped total. |
| 1 | Buried | On the far right of this beach, dig in a small sand alcove to the east. |
| 1 | Buried (Journal Scrap #6) | In the south-east corner of the beach, below a curved palm tree on the cliff; the exact tile is marked by the scrap’s drawing. |
| 1 | Ship interior | Walk along the thin strip of sand into the shipwreck at the southwest; inside, a plant holds a walnut. |
| 1 | Puzzle (mole) | Near Birdie’s hut, a green mole pops between four holes. Block three with placeable items and hit the mole with axe, pickaxe, or watering can at the last hole to earn a walnut. |
| 1 | Buried | On the same beach, dig in the center of a triangle of blue starfish. |
| 1 | Buried | Near the tide pools, dig the center of a diamond made of blue and yellow starfish. |
| 1 | Buried | At the tide pools, dig the tile marked by an “X” in the sand. |
| 1 | Buried | Southwest of the tide pools, near the surf line, dig the center of a diamond of small sand depressions. |
Pirate’s Wife quest and Birdie’s shoreline walnuts
| Count | Type | Location / action |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Quest | Talk to Birdie on the west shore to start “The Pirate’s Wife.” Chain the items through Kent (War Memento), Gus (Gourmet Tomato Salt), Sandy (Stardew Valley Rose), George (Advanced TV Remote), the Wizard (Arctic Shard), and Willy (Wriggling Worm). Return the Pirate’s Locket to Birdie for five walnuts plus the Fairy Dust recipe. |
| 1 | Buried (Journal Scrap #4) | Dig the tile north of Birdie’s hut indicated in the scrap; also gives a Quality Bobber. |
| 1 | Bush | West along the coast toward Qi’s Walnut Room, shake the bush at the bottom-right of a cliff. |
| 1 | Bush (hidden path) | Continue past Qi’s door along the narrow tidal path to a hidden walnut bush at the very west edge. |
Tiger Slime Grove and upper-west walnuts
| Count | Type | Location / action |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Combat | Kill Tiger Slimes in the Tiger Slime Grove north of the beach until one walnut drops. |
| 1 | Bush (hidden) | In the grove, a mahogany tree hides a walnut bush directly behind it. |
| 1 | Buried | Dig the center of a ring of tall grass tufts in the grove. |
| 1 | Bush (cliff edge) | From the grove, walk east along the cliff edge (cutting rocks and weeds) to a lone bush at the end. |
Farm plateau, hidden paths, and crystal cave puzzle
| Count | Type | Location / action |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Harvesting | On the Island Farm fields, harvest qualifying crops until five walnuts have popped out. |
| 15 | Gourmand Frog puzzle | After repairing the farmhouse, enter the cave northeast of the fields to meet the Gourmand Frog. Grow a Melon, then Wheat, then Garlic on the farm. For each crop, leave it fully grown in the ground and talk to the frog to earn five walnuts (15 total). Only harvest after receiving the reward. |
| 1 | Bush (overlooking farm) | South of the farm’s Parrot Express stop, follow the upper cliff around and down toward the farmhouse; a walnut bush sits overlooking the fields. |
| 1 | Bush | From the Parrot Express, walk left over the small bridge; a partially hidden bush along the southern wall holds a walnut. |
| 3 | Puzzle (crystal cave) | From the bridge above the farmhouse, turn right into a hidden cave with colored crystals and a lion statue. The statue plays a sequence; repeat it by hitting crystals in the same order several times. Three walnuts are awarded. |
| 1 | Bush (hidden path) | Before the farmhouse bridge, hug the cliff edge between two bushes and slip into a narrow path to a walnut bush. |
| 1 | Buried | Right of the Parrot Express stop on the farm, dig in the center of a ring of white daisies. |
| 1 | Bush (dark path) | From those daisies, walk straight north into a fully obscured path in the trees; follow the rough pattern of leaves and shake the tree at the far end for a walnut. |
Ginger Island South and Pirate Cove
The southern beach is initially blocked. Paying 20 walnuts builds the Island Resort, clearing debris to Island Southeast, and unlocking Pirate Cove inside the right-hand cave.
| Count | Type | Location / action |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bush (pre-resort) | From Island North’s entrance, immediately turn right and slip behind the bright green tree into a hidden southward route; this cliff-top bush actually counts for Island South in the walnut tracker. |
| 1 | Fishing | On the southeast beach, the first time you fish in the starfish-shaped tide pool, you pull up a walnut. |
| 1 | Buried | On the same beach, dig the center of a diamond of yellow starfish. |
| 5 | Puzzle (Mermaid flute blocks) | During rain, the Mermaid appears offshore. Place five Flute Blocks on or next to the stone groupings on the beach and tune them using stone sizes as counting hints (small stone = +1, large stone = +5). Correct tuning plays a melody when you run past and triggers a five-walnut reward. |
| 3 | Pirate darts game | On clear, even-numbered days after 8 p.m., pirates populate Pirate Cove. Beat the darts minigame by hitting exactly 301 points three separate times to earn three walnuts (one per win). |
| 1 | Buried (Pirate Cove) | Inside Pirate Cove, dig the exposed sand patch among barrels on the right side of the lagoon. |
Putting it all together
Golden Walnuts look scattered and random at first, but the island has a clear structure. East gets you Leo, the hint parrot, and early walnuts. One walnut there opens North, which leads to the Volcano Dungeon and the Dig Site. Ten walnuts out of the north and volcano open West, and the Island Farm, and twenty more build the farmhouse so you can grow the crops the Gourmand Frog wants while still farming and spelunking.
By the time you repair the Dig Site bridge, finish Professor Snail’s fossils, plant a Banana tree, and clear the Volcano, you’re most of the way to the 100 walnuts needed for Qi’s Walnut Room. Anything still missing is almost always a single dig tile, a hidden bush on a dark path, one of the fishing or farming RNG drops, or the three darts rewards in Pirate Cove—and the island parrots will keep nudging you toward them until the Golden Joja Parrot offers to simply sell you the rest.
