Any sooner and it will regrow just like grass. The cutting is done in the heat of summer when the corn is about 2feet tall. With a larger plot, you have more space to create circles, dead ends, and leave a larger space between paths to ensure you can’t see from one path to another.ĭrawing the maze out to scale on graph paper makes it easier to enlarge and cut the maze. Matt says it’s much easier to design and cut a maze in a larger area. This year he settled on a solar system design that was inspired by the solar eclipse earlier this year. He draws his final design out on graph paper, using the squares to make sure he can fit the maze into his corn field. To make the design for the maze, he scours the internet borrowing ideas from other farmers, accepting advice from friendly maze designers, and has a lot of his own inspiration. It took 2-3 people and 2 full days of work to cut their maze this year. Matt said a lot of farmers use GPS guided tractors, but for a small family farm, he just uses a 42-inch ZTR lawn mower, a long measuring tape, and a big stick. I was most curious about the design and cutting of the corn maze. ![]() Otherwise, you’ll spend a fortune watering the field just to keep it lush and green. Since you don’t want to plant your corn maze until July, you need a corn that will be able to prosper in the hot dry weather. The corn also needs to be drought tolerant. So the variety of corn that they use for the maze has to be able to hold itself up without needing to be hilled up. ![]() Even then we always have a few that get blown over.īut hilling up 3 to 5 acres of thickly planted corn is not practical. This helps them form a strong base to resist wind pressure. When we grow corn at our farm, we go in and hill up the plants when they’re a few inches tall. Good standability means that the corn should be very sturdy and resistant to falling over. Rather it needs good standability and has to be drought tolerant. The type of corn planted for a corn maze doesn’t need to be the best for eating. Now they order it through a local feed store. So Matt quickly learned to plan ahead and speak to a seed supplier about their corn options in advance. Brown corn is less bushy, and you can see right through the rows making it hard to get truly lost in the maze. Planting corn too early in the spring means that it’s all dried up and brown by the time visitors are ready to start wandering the maze. And corn planted in April is spent by July. It sprouts, it blooms, it sets fruit, then it dies. See corn has a relatively short lifespan. They chose an heirloom corn seed based on it being available within their necessary time frame and quantity. That first year, they learned a lot from their mistakes. They helped him determine which type of corn to grow, how to plant the corn in a grid pattern, and how to seed the corn into the field. He even reached out to the creators of the videos for advice, and they were happy to help. “You can learn anything on YouTube,” he said. I asked Matt how he learned to create his own maze and he said, in brief, YouTube. Since they’d never had a farm, they didn’t have even have a tractor or plow.īut they were able to borrow from friends in the community so they could have everything they needed to start their first corn maze. With the dream of families enjoying cool fall days on their farm, Matt bought a 14 acre property in Hartwell, GA. But when Matt decides he wants to do something, he doesn’t stop until he’s done. So when Matt came up with a plan to start a corn maze, Susan was a bit overwhelmed with the idea. The couple has two kids who are both active in the community and with after-school activities. Matt is an airline pilot and Susan works in sales. In fact, Matt and Susan who run the corn maze both have full-time jobs. It was built on a dream to create a place where families would gather, have fun, share love, and take home memories. The maze wasn’t founded on the idea that the business would be an income source for their family. ![]() That’s why I love visiting Five Forks Corn Maze. ![]() Even going beyond just making sure the customer is satisfied with the product, a successful person strives to improve the lives of their customers as a result of purchasing their product. I think that the most important trait of a successful business is a passion for making customers happy.
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