How is our Maze Made?

The Design Stage

The design phase takes a long time from first sketch to final draft. Our maze designer, Shawn Stolworthy, who owns MazePlay.com, has a full time graphics arts staff and we work with them to put our vision into a design that can be "drawn" into a cornfield. It starts with our ideas and some very rough sketches to help convey what we are thinking. The rough sketches are put into a graphics program and then we email back and forth with Shawn until the design is complete!

When "drawing" a picture in a cornfield with a 10 foot wide "brush", you can't get all the detail you would like. That's where the expertise of a great corn maze designer like MazePlay comes in. They have the knowledge and experience, along with the artistic eye, to know what works and how to convey an image on this very broad canvas.

Once we have our completed design, the checkpoints are added - some easy, some challenging - and the location of the bridges is set, making sure we have easy access to and from the bridges.

To see the development of one of our mazes from beginning to end, check out this issue of our farm newsletter!

How the Star Trek Maze was Made

Planting the Maze

The cornfield is planted in early May both north-south and east-west to form a dense stand. When the corn is 10 inches tall, the trails are tilled with a small tractor guided by a Global Positioning System (GPS). The bridges are carefully set in place with a large fork lift and the steps and braces are bolted on. Then the posts for checkpoints, quiz trail and kid's trails are drilled in. In July, most of the trails are tilled again to clean them up and get them ready for opening day!

Our Past Mazes