How do I unlock Expert Mode? - You must complete the first three weeks of Casual Mode.

From The In-Game Tips

You can carry up to three crates at once.

Harvest slow-groing crops first, like tomoatoes, to finish quickly and get a time bonus.

#1 Buy soil and plant extra crops to finish quickly. But remember, you have to care for all that you buy.

#2 Orders taking too long?

-- Get slower items done first, so you're not waiting.

-- Animals and machines need more care.

-- Corn, wheat, grapes, and pumpkins take awhile to grow.

#3 Chaining

Its very easy to chain actions together in this game because there appears to be no limit in how far you can click ahead. You'll see a checkmark for the destination you've clicked on. To cancel all next tasks, right click your mouse.

#4 An organized ranch saves walking time! Use move mode to group related items together, like tomatoes and ketchup machines.

See more on this on the "Farm Layout" section below.

#5 Sometimes it pays to buy more: you may need to buy several hives, animals, and gear to finish bigger orders faster.

#6 Need more room? Use the arrow keys or move the mouse cursor to the edge of the screen to view all parts of your ranch.

#7 If you're hard up for cash, you can sell items for 50% of the purchase price.

#8 Take your time in Buy, Move, or Sell modes. The Timer pauses in these modes. Right click your mouse to quickly leave these modes.

#9 You can take a snapshot of your farm to share it with others by clicking the camera button. You'll get a JPG image file.

More Tips

- The next day's orders show on the screen. Although you get extra money for finishing quickly, you can make things easier on yourself if you have some of the slower items prepared in advance for the next day (like extra honey or milk at the end of your day). You can also look ahead to see what types of crops you may need to start planting now to be prepared for the orders of the next day.

- Feel free to take the time to reorganize. On some of the harder levels, some crops won't be needed. Move those crops off to a corner somewhere and try to consolidate the things you do need on to as few screens as possible.

Farm Layout

As you continue on in the game, you'll realize that the real strategy of this game is in how you layout your farm. The more difficult the levels are, the more difficult it becomes to fit everything on the screen you need. Therefore, you must plan from the beginning in terms of layout if you want to have room for everything you'll need by the end.

Notice the placement of the sprinkler in the picture above. In the beginning of the game, you can plan ahead for the sprinklers by placing the seed bag in the middle of your crops (see below). Once you get the sprinklers, you can get rid of your wells.

Consider buying multiple sets of wells, crates, sprays, etc. and place them strategically around the farm to minimize the amount of walking Sara needs to do. For example, until you are able to get the sprinklers, place the wells on different sides of the farm.

Don't get Stung! To avoid being stung, you must place the bee hives AWAY from the clover, even though they need the clover to make honey. You can only harvest the honey while the bees are away from their hive.

Sample Week 3 Layout

Notice how the barn and the ketchup machine are partially off screen to maximize space.

Sample Week 4 Layout

Grapes and Sheep get added this go around. You still really only need one well, one box of crates, and one barn at this point.

Sample Week 5 Layout

The cheese machine is layed out next to the cows, and the ketchup machine is moved to the other side of the tomato crops so both machines can be the toolbox. Also, a new barn is added for gathering corn and fleece faster. On Friday, I swapped the bee hives with the corn since no corn was needed that day. That put the bees right next to the barn.

Week 6 Notes

On the first day of week six, I saved the 25 clover until the end and I took the time to reorganize the farm at the end of the level to put the barn right next to the clover so I could quickly harvest it. That helped me get a better bonus at the end. I also slowly started placing the sprinklers in the middle of the crops. Below is a montage of my week 6 layout.

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