Sunflower Maze and Festival return to Trask Family Farms

CASTLE HAYNE, NC (WWAY) — Trask Family Farms hosted its fourth annual Sunflower Festival on Saturday, welcoming visitors from across the area.

The event ran from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and featured more than 35 local vendors. Attractions included a petting zoo, food trucks and flower picking.

Guests explored a nine-acre sunflower maze, which Trask Family Farms says is the largest of its kind in North Carolina. The maze allows visitors to walk through blooming sunflower rows and create their own floral arrangements.

Grahm Trask, head farmer at the family-run operation, said the festival helps connect people with the source of their food and flowers.

“We wanted to give the community an opportunity to come out here and enjoy the place, also give back to nature, realize where flowers come from — not from a grocery store shelf but out here in the fields that we grow ’em in,” Trask said. “We kind of started this event to highlight agriculture in this area in New Hanover County and give people a space they can come out and enjoy.”

Trask said the festival also marks the farm’s unofficial opening each summer. Their sunflowers typically reach full bloom in early June.

Attendance has grown since the festival’s first year. Around 100 people came out during the initial event. This year, Trask said they’ve seen anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 visitors.