While their farmstand is open year-round, where they offer farm-grown herbs, produce, honey, and many other items, it’s their flowers – particularly sunflowers – that the farm along the North Shore of Massachusetts is known for. Here are some photographs of the 21st season of the sunflower bloom.
Operating since 1960, the 370-acre family farm features a farmstand mostly surrounded by hayfields along a back road in Newbury, Massachusetts. A nearby plot, roughly the size of eighteen football fields, has been reserved for vegetables and herbs. Next to the farmstand, just before the corn and hayfields, you will find two acres of bright yellow sunflowers.
The common sunflower (Helianthus annuus) is a large annual herb belonging to the daisy family, Asteraceae. It is cultivated primarily for its edible, oil-rich seeds, which are commonly processed to produce cooking oil, offered as bird food, and eaten as snacks. Wild varieties typically bear multiple smaller flower heads, while cultivated forms usually feature a single large flower head on an unbranched stem.
The sunflower fields are a hotspot for selfie-takers, senior portraits, and families with young children. To avoid the crowd, get there as early as possible and try to avoid weekends if you can. The field typically blooms in late August and early September, mostly depending on the weather, with full bloom lasting up to two weeks.
Bring a stepping stool or a small ladder with you, especially for portraits. Sunflowers can reach a height of 10 feet, while the flowers here are about 5-8 feet tall, again depending on the season. Lastly, bring cash. There is no cost to enter the sunflower field, but they do charge $10 to park, as there is no street parking. Hours are normally 9-6 daily, weather dependent.
Western Honey Bee, Common Eastern Bumble Bee, and many other bees, spiders, flies, and other insects gather nectar and call the sunflower field home. The bees will not sting you if you leave them alone. Swatting and disrupting their foraging will annoy and anger them. Please do not pick the flowers and try not to damage the stems or any part of the flower while wandering the field.
