Grow a Garden – The Trader Arrives Update Guide

The latest Grow a Garden – The Trader Arrives Update finally introduces a feature players have been asking for months: full player trading, along with a brand-new Trader NPC, token-based economy, booth marketplace, new pets, crafting materials, and revamped safety tools to prevent scams.

I spent some time inside the testing server to see how everything actually works, and this guide breaks down every feature in the update so you know exactly what to expect when it rolls out publicly.

What This Update Adds

• New Trader NPC with hourly item trades
• Player-to-player trading system (no more trading tickets)
• Trading PIN system for scam protection
• Trading Tokens (replace Robux in trades)
• Farmers Market – full trading plaza with booths
• Booth skins and crate system
• New pets with unique passives
• Crafting for ingot cosmetics + Chimera pet
• Reworked trading rules & anti-unfair-trade settings

This is the first update that shifts the game toward free-market style trading, similar to how Pet Sim 99 runs its economy, but tied more directly to farming and item crafting instead of pure cash shop spending.

The Trader NPC (Hourly Offers & Rewards)

The Trader NPC swaps fruits for high-value items. Each hour, the NPC refreshes a new request, such as:

Example trade: 5 Sunflowers -> Wild Pineapple

The reward pool covers everything from seeds to machines, and some items have extremely low drop rates.

Based on testing, here’s how the reward percentages seem to break down:

Reward Chances From Trader

• Pomegranate Seed — ~17.8%
• Large Toy — ~15%
• Outdoors Crate — ~13.7%
• Smelter & Forge Blower — 30.3%
• Cooling Barrel — 19%
• Bellows & Blacksmith Forge — 10%
• Geode Turtle — 12.3%
• Jungle Egg — 10.9%
• Gem Egg + Lollipop — 8.2%
• Gem Chest — 5.4%
• Grandmaster Sprinkler — 4.1%
• Wild Pineapple Seed — 2.7%
• Silver Lollipop + Pack Mule — 0.6%

From experience, rare seeds and special pets are the most valuable here, but what makes the Trader worth checking hourly is that you can bypass grind walls by exchanging surplus farm items instead of relying purely on RNG farming.

Gem Chest Contents

Gem Chests are one of the more desirable rewards due to their pet selection:

Gem Chest Rewards

• Gem Fruit + Clam — 34%
• Coil Vine + Magpie — 14.5%
• Asteris + Bearded Dragon — 1%
• Rainbow-tier variants also exist for select seeds

Some of the new fruit resembled Halloween cosmetic designs when I inspected them, so expect themed seed visuals returning in future seasonal updates.

New Player Trading Interface (Inventory-Based Trades)

Trading tickets are now obsolete.

The new trade UI lets you:

• View player inventories
• Send direct trade requests
• Check trade history
• Restrict visibility to Friends, Everyone, or No One

I liked the inventory visibility toggle because it removes awkward price-checking and guessing, especially when you’re trying to trade without getting undercut or scammed.

Trading PIN System (Security Update)

This might be the most important safety change.

You can now set a four-digit trading PIN, which prevents trades without verification. This stops:

• Hijacked accounts trading away pets
• Discord phishing scams
• Friends messing with your items while co-playing

There’s a recovery phrase system, so you’ll want to store that privately.

Unfair Trade Protection

New players can enable anti-unfair-trade warnings that flag trades that look uneven based on internal value calculations.

From what I tested, it’s not perfect, but it does help avoid situations where new players trade rare pets for furniture scraps.

Trading Tokens (The New Currency)

Trading Tokens replace Robux inside the trading economy:

• 1 Robux = 1 Token
• Can be purchased OR traded with players
• Works like diamonds in other trading games
• Used in booths, shops, and direct trades
• Can substitute Robux when buying premium items

The biggest surprise for me was realizing you can buy Season Passes, premium chests, and upgrades using tokens instead of Robux. That essentially turns farming into a path toward premium unlocks.

This is probably the most free-to-play friendly feature the game has added so far.

Farmers Market – Public Trading Plaza

To enter, you need:

100,000 Shekels earned

Inside the plaza:

• Up to 30 players per server
• Multiple trade booths
• Search feature to locate sellers instantly
• RAP system (value history like Pet Sim 99)
• Full pet & plant index with token value tracking

Browsing booths felt surprisingly smooth, and the “Find Sellers” teleporter is a huge quality-of-life addition, no more running around guessing which booth has what you need.

Booth Skins & Container Drops

Skins are unlocked through containers purchased with trade tokens.

Some examples:

Crate Set A

• Green / Purple — 24.5%
• Torugate / Cyber — 16%
• Dark Stone / Greek — 7.5%
• Fairy — 3%
• DJ Booth — 1.5%

Crate Set B

• Way Avenue / Blue / Yellow — 24.5%
• Pink / Stone — 16%
• Nature / Beach — 7.5%
• Cherry Blossom — 3%
• Waterfall — 1.5%

Visually, they feel more like Pet Sim booth skins, but tied to farming themes.

New Pets & Passives

Some of the new passives genuinely change farming efficiency:

Clam

6.5% chance watering cans aren’t consumed
(Feels huge when planting high-tier crops)

Magpie

Chance to drop items when selling silver fruit
Good for passive resource farming

Silver Piggy

Nearby plants grow faster based on number of silver ingots placed

Golden Piggy

Nearby plants gain extra XP based on gold ingots placed

Pack Mule

Crafted pets gain extra base weight (up to +3kg)

As someone who crafts pets often, Pack Mule might become a must-have.

Chimera Pet (High-Cost Endgame Craft)

Crafted with:

• Mythical Egg
• Bug Egg
• Jungle Egg
• Gem Egg
• 500M Shekels

Its three passives combine effects from multiple pet archetypes:

• Roars like Lion (cooldown advancement)
• Rams players, giving common eggs
• Chance to duplicate shop purchases

This looks like a late-end hybrid pet designed for veteran players.

My Thoughts on the Update

This is easily the biggest systems update the game has had so far, and the shift toward token-based trading makes it feel legitimately player-driven instead of purely grind-locked.

The fact that you can trade for premium content without spending Robux makes progression feel way more flexible.

If anything, the only concern is how token economy balance works long-term, if tokens become too scarce or expensive, it could create a player-driven paywall.

But based on early testing, it looks promising.

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