A-maze-ing time at annual Pumpkin Festival

Rachel Hunsader-Sliker doesn’t remember a life without corn mazes.

Now 26 years old, she grew up on East County’s Hunsader Farms with her brothers Alex and Austin. Each year, before the family’s annual Hunsader Farms Pumpkin Festival, the trio would get lost in the corn maze their father, David Hunsader, created.

“That was our most fun thing to do — go in the corn maze,” Hunsader-Sliker said. “When we were little, we would memorize the whole thing. We learned every turn.”

Hunsader-Sliker still does it at least once each year before the start of the 27-year-old festival, which begins Oct. 13 and runs weekends

through Oct. 28.

“When people think of the fall they think of a corn maze,” said Hunsader-Sliker, who now manages the farm’s market area. “We don’t really have fall in Florida, but we have a corn maze.

“It’s cool because my dad made it,” she said. “I don’t know how he figures it out, but it’s cool to see all these people in there and knowing we had a part in making it.”

For the past three years, Hunsader-Sliker has come up with the design — a responsibility her dad delegated to her after she graduated from University of South Florida with a degree in studio art.

Inspiration for the maze’s design varies by year. In 2013, it had messages honoring Hunsader-
Sliker’s grandfather, Jim Hunsader, who had died. Last year, there was a picture of Manatee County’s famous 69-year-old manatee, Snooty, who died that July.

“We put stuff in it that’s meaningful,” Hunsader-Sliker said.

This year’s design says “Support Our American Farmers” and has a picture of a truck. Hunsader-Sliker said pricing of produce from Mexico has undercut those of American farmers, making it difficult for them to break even on what they grow. Several farming operations have stopped growing tomatoes, in particular, for that reason, even though the area is great for growing them.

The maze location itself is marked with stakes every 50 feet year-round. David Hunsader uses those to create a grid on the ground. He uses that same grid pattern on paper and overlays the design.

When the sorghum gets to be about 4 inches tall, he looks at the grid on his paper and charts out the letters and images he creates on the land. He used to mow the plants over, but now uses weed killer where he doesn’t want the sorghum to grow.

“We do it all by hand,” David Hunsader said.

After that, most of the work is over. They simply let the sorghum grow until the festival begins. David Hunsader said he checks to make sure the path is clear, but doesn’t mow if he doesn’t have to.

“Just before the festival, I go in it just to make sure you can get out,” David Hunsader said. “It’s fun watching it grow and seeing the kids go through.”