Stand in the middle of Grinter Farms' sunflower field and you'll hear the abundant sounds of the outdoors: birds chirping, insects buzzing, humans sneezing. The Allegra and Claritin crowd could make a killing selling antihistamines out here, but the real draw is visual. As far as the eye can see, thousands of golden heads fill the field. It looks like the flowers go on forever, though Ted Grinter, who operates the family farm between Tonganoxie and Lawrence, is quick to correct that impression. "It looks like they go on forever, but they don't," he says with a grin.
What they lack in infinity, they make up for in spectacle. For about three weeks each late August and early September, the Grinter family's sunflower fields become one of the Midwest's most improbable tourist destinations. Visitors have come from China, Australia, Ukraine, Czechia, and New Zealand. A woman writing a novel about a sunflower farm recently stopped by to research what life on such a place is really like. Two women from Dallas make the pilgrimage every single year, even though they could find thousands of acres of sunflowers closer to home. They always come back to Grinter Farms.
None of this was supposed to happen. The Grinter family moved onto this land in 1947, and for decades they grew the usual Kansas staples—soybeans and wheat. Sunflowers were not part of the plan. But in 1973, the OPEC oil embargo sent gas prices soaring and shortages rippling across the country, and Ted Grinter's grandfather began thinking about alternative fuel. His idea was to grow sunflowers and process their oil into biofuel. The closest processor willing to help, however, was in Goodland, all the way on the western side of the state—a prohibitive distance for a family farm. So they pivoted. They started selling the sunflowers as birdseed instead, a business Ted Grinter has now been bagging and selling for nearly fifty years.
For a long time, the sunflowers were just a crop. Then people started noticing them. When the flowers bloomed each year, passersby would pull over, snap pictures, and sometimes help themselves to the flower heads. Around thirty years ago, Ted Grinter had had enough. He told his wife, Kris, that he was done—done with strangers taking his crop. But Kris suggested a different approach: put out a donation box near the field, just to see what happens. Sure enough, people started putting in donations. "I don't feel so bad about people taking them now," Grinter says.
That donation box remains the farm's only admission policy. There is no entry fee, no parking charge, no ticket booth. Visitors are asked to drop a dollar in the box if they plan to take a sunflower head home, and the honor system works surprisingly well. Grinter and his wife have both been adamant about keeping it free. "We're free," Grinter says. "There's people who have sunflower festivals and stuff, but there might be $5 to park. We're not going to do that." The family does sell some merchandise at the Sunflower General Store, which opens during bloom season with a bakery turning out cinnamon rolls and other treats alongside products from local businesses and artists. Any money they make helps feed what Grinter calls their "sunflower habit."
For decades, the farm's popularity spread by word of mouth and the occasional phone call. Then, in the mid-2010s, Grinter's daughter suggested they start a Facebook page. The page took off almost immediately, drawing thousands of followers and turning a local curiosity into a global phenomenon. National television programs came calling—"Good Morning America" and "CBS Sunday Mornings" both featured the farm. "It's wild," Grinter says, still sounding genuinely amazed by the attention.
The wildest moment came in 2016, over Labor Day weekend. A perfect storm of holiday traffic, road construction, and the farm's newfound popularity produced what Grinter still calls "Carmaggedon." Traffic backed up on U.S. Highway 24-40. The Leavenworth County Sheriff's Office advised the family to close the farm for the day, and they did. Looking back, Grinter describes it as a "fiasco"—stressful, chaotic, and requiring coordination with state troopers and local police. In the years since, more sunflower farms have popped up in the area, which Grinter says "takes some of the pressure off."
This year, the Grinters are growing around thirty acres of sunflowers—about ten acres open to the public, with another twenty in a separate field. Grinter estimates there are roughly 750,000 seeds planted across those fields. The exact bloom date fluctuates with weather and growing conditions, but the flowers typically reach their peak in late August to early September.
The bloom window is heartbreakingly short. The peak lasts only about three weeks, normally ending in mid-September. Visitors who time it wrong find themselves staring at tall green stalks and withered brown heads. Those who time it right find themselves swimming in a sea of gold, surrounded by the hum of bees and the click of camera shutters.
Grinter Farms sits about four miles south of Tonganoxie on Stillwell Road, in Leavenworth County, though it carries a Lawrence address. The farm's main crops remain soybeans and wheat; the sunflowers are the side project that got out of hand. Ted Grinter still doesn't quite know what to make of it all. He never planned on tourism. He planned on raising sunflowers for birdseed. But the crowds keep coming, and he keeps welcoming them, free of charge, year after year. "We're not trying to get rich off it," he says. "Just trying to keep us going." His favorite part of the whole spectacle is simple: "Oh, all the smiles," he says. "You get to see a lot of smiles, a lot of kids running around, having a good time."
If you take a sunflower head home, drop a dollar in the donation box. It's the honor system that saved the farm's sunflower habit, and it's still going strong after thirty years.