Dawsonville, GA |
It’s rows of gold here in North Georgia, where fields of sunflowers stretch across thirty acres on a historic family-owned farm in Dawson County. What started as a poultry operation in the 1850s is now one of the state’s largest growers of this beloved seasonal flower — and the numbers this season are impressive.
“Right now we’ve got about a few hundred thousand sunflowers that are blooming or have been bloomed. This second field behind me is just starting. The cooler weather is slowing down the progress a little, but they’re going to get there,” said Brett Fausett of Fausett Farms. “And after these, about two weeks later, we’ve got fields across the creek that are going to start blooming too. In total, we’ve probably got about seven hundred thousand flowers.”
Even though sunflowers may only be in bloom for a short window, the work behind them is anything but brief — it’s a year-round process that starts long before the first seed goes in the ground.
“You’ve got to start with subsoiling, soil samples — we get those back from the University of Georgia and decide on our fertilizer. Then come the final preparations, the plowing, the planting, and then taking care of pesticides, herbicides, all of that,” Fausett said. “It’s always a battle with deer and bugs, but we make it happen.”
Growing conditions in this part of North Georgia are well suited for sunflowers — rich bottomland soil and plenty of sunshine give the crop the foundation it needs. And for those curious about whether sunflowers really do follow the sun, Fausett can confirm it.
“The ground here in these bottoms is really rich. If you’ve got clay, it’s going to be more difficult,” he said. “They need as much sun as they can get, and they do follow the sun. When they’re just a bulb, they will track it across the sky — I get asked that all the time. Once they bloom, most of them are facing east.”
This summer’s relentless heat did present some challenges, cutting the early bloom shorter than expected and giving Fausett a firsthand reminder that weather is never fully on your side in farming.
“The first field didn’t last as long as it should have because it was so hot — they usually last about two weeks, but that field lasted about a week or ten days,” Fausett said. “If it stays this cool when the next fields bloom, that field will probably last three weeks. It’s a fight with weather. Sometimes it’s your friend and sometimes it’s not.”
All the hard work is worth it, Fausett says, when he sees the thousands of visitors who come through the farm gates each week during bloom season — some of them from well beyond the Georgia state line.
“There’s a lot of work — a lot people don’t see. But it’s what we do. We’ve farmed our whole life,” he said. “We started with agritourism around 2013 or 2014, and I just like seeing people come and enjoy what we do. It makes us proud. We have people who come back every year. We have people come from out of state. A family flew in from Detroit just for this. People come from all over.”
For Fausett Farms, the sunflower season is short — but the impact it leaves on visitors, and the pride it gives the family behind it, lasts all year long.