Agriculture meets entertainment at Ramsey Farm, which is opening this weekend for its 13th season of harvest-themed family activities.
The 100-acre farm, on Ramsey Road in Brandywine Hundred, offers hayrides, pumpkin painting, a pumpkin patch and three different crop mazes for children of all ages.
Thanks to fertilizer, this year’s pumpkins are especially large, said farm-owner Stewart Ramsey, and there are more than 30,000 of them in the patch, going for $2 to $20.
Pumpkin painting and hayrides each cost $2, Ramsey said, but the farm’s biggest draw is its elaborate crop mazes.
The farm operates a 500-bale hay bale maze, the biggest it has ever built, for young children to wander through for an admission cost of $2, he said.
The First State was the theme of this year's larger mazes and Ramsey carved the word “Delaware” into a sorghum field and mowed an area map into 8 acres of closely planted corn.
Farm visitors who enter the sorghum and corn mazes, which cost $4 and $8, respectively, will follow a trail of clues that contain trivia about local fixtures, he said.
Ramsey estimates it will take visitors about an hour and a half to complete the corn maze, which is one of the most difficult he has ever produced.
“It looks like a rainforest,” he said. “The whole maze is a jungle of corn, it is so thick.”
But this year’s maze was not easily made. Ramsey planted corn for the maze in mid-June, but it did not grow properly, so he had to replant the field at the end of July.
He was worried the corn would not come in fast enough, but it grew in a hurry and the maze was saved.
Ramsey made a map of the maze using graph paper, then followed the map vigilantly as he mowed his way through the corn field.
He said the end result is one of the best mazes he has ever made.
“It’s certainly not for the claustrophobic,” said Ramsey.
Ramsey Farm is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends from Sept. 27 through Oct. 26. The farm is also open 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Fridays during October.
For more information about Ramsey Farm, call (302) 477-1499 or visit their Web site.
