If you have already circled a Saturday for the pumpkin patch, there is one piece of scheduling you need before you commit to a farm: this coming weekend, September 26 and 27, is the last chance to pick sunflowers at Stocker Farms this year. The Sunflower Festival there does not run all fall. It runs exactly two weekends, and the first one just happened.
That is the kind of detail that gets lost when fall near Dutch Hill gets treated as one long, undifferentiated season of hayrides and cider donuts. It is not one season. It is three farms running three different calendars, and each one has a rule that will trip you up if you assume the others apply.
The Sunflower Window Is Closing, Not Peaking
Stocker Farms, the fourth and fifth generation operation on Marsh Road that has farmed this stretch of the Snohomish Valley since 1919, treats its sunflower fields as a bonus act rather than the main show. The farm's own listing is specific about it: the Sunflower Festival runs the weekends of September 19 and 20, then September 26 and 27, layered on top of the regular fall activities. After that, the sunflowers are done for the year, even though the corn maze and pumpkin patch keep going into October.
If sunflower photos are the point of your trip, the math is simple. This weekend is it. Everything after belongs to pumpkins and corn.
Craven Farm Opens on a Schedule, Not Whenever You Show Up
The Original Pumpkin Patch of Snohomish, running its 41st fall festival this year on Shorts School Road, is the farm most likely to disappoint someone who drives out on a random Tuesday afternoon expecting a September pumpkin patch to be open because the calendar says fall. From September 14 through 30, Craven Farm operates Friday through Sunday only. The gates simply are not open Monday through Thursday during that stretch. Once October starts, the window widens to Wednesday through Sunday, and Friday and Saturday nights add late hours until 9 p.m., though only the corn maze and fire pits stay lit that late.
So the farm that has been doing this since 1983, the one built around the idea of a tradition families return to year after year, runs the tightest weekly schedule of the three. Two full days a week, every week, simply do not exist for Craven Farm visitors in September.
Bob's Corn Runs the Longest and Stays Open Every Day
Ten miles or so out toward Cathcart, Bob's Corn & Pumpkin Farm takes the opposite approach. This year's run stretches from September 19 through November 1, open daily from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., with no days blacked out. The farm's own history traces back to a nine-year-old selling sweet corn roadside in the early 1980s, and the operation has kept adding to itself since, including the corn maze that debuted in 2001 and carries a new theme every season, this year's built around the idea of "Forever a Farm."
Bob's Corn is also the only one of the three running a Friday and Saturday Night Maze through October, so it is the natural landing spot for anyone who wants an after-dark visit rather than a daytime one, or who simply cannot make it out during a week when Craven Farm's doors are closed.
The Three Calendars, Side by Side
| Farm | 2026 Fall Window | Days Open | The Catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stocker Farms | Sunflowers Sept 19-20 & 26-27; Fall Festival through October | Daily | Sunflowers gone after Sept 27 |
| Craven Farm | Sept 14-30, then Oct 1-27 | Fri-Sun in Sept; Wed-Sun in Oct | Closed Mon-Tue all season, Mon-Thu in Sept |
| Bob's Corn & Pumpkin Farm | Sept 19-Nov 1 | Daily, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. | Only one with a Fri/Sat Night Maze in October |
Laid out this way, the pattern is obvious once you see it: no two of these farms run on the same clock, and none of them advertises that fact in a way that would help you plan around it.
How This Actually Sorts Itself Out on a Dutch Hill Weekend
For a household picking which weekend gets which farm, the calendar above suggests an order that has nothing to do with which farm is "best" and everything to do with which windows close first.
- If sunflowers matter at all, this weekend, September 26 and 27, is the only one left. That decision cannot wait.
- If a weekday outing is the only option some week in September, Bob's Corn is the only one of the three actually open on a Tuesday or Wednesday.
- If the plan is a Friday night maze with the kids, Bob's Corn and Craven Farm both offer it in October, but Craven's late nights only keep the corn maze and fire pits running, so anyone hoping for the full slate of attractions after dark should check which parts of the farm are actually lit before heading out.
- Craven Farm's weekend-only September schedule makes it a better fit for a planned Saturday than a spontaneous afternoon, at least until October widens the days to include Wednesday through Sunday.
None of this requires giving up any of the three. It just means the household that wants sunflowers, a weekday pumpkin run, and a Friday night maze needs to sequence those in that order, because two of the three windows close before the season is halfway over.
What This Says About the Season, Not Just the Farms
The interesting part is not that three farms have three schedules. It is that all three describe themselves the same way in their own marketing: a tradition, a family memory, something generations have kept doing. Stocker Farms talks about fourth and fifth generation farmers. Craven Farm talks about honoring the families who have made the farm part of their own story since 1983. Bob's Corn frames itself around the idea that family memories grow there. Every one of them is selling continuity.
But continuity at the level of the brand is not the same as continuity at the level of the calendar week. The tradition holds every year. The specific Tuesday, the specific Friday night, the specific weekend when the sunflowers are actually blooming, those change constantly, and the only way to know them is to check each farm's own current-season page rather than assume last year's rhythm still applies. A farm that has run for over forty years can still close its gates on a random Wednesday in September, and that is worth knowing before the drive, not after.
For anyone living along Riverview Road, Fobes Hill Road, or Dubuque Road, all three farms sit close enough to make a full fall circuit realistic in a single season. The trick is not picking a favorite. It is reading the fine print on the season each one is actually running, because the fine print is where the real schedule lives.
If fall reminds you how much you love this stretch of Snohomish and gets you thinking about whether your own property or land could use the same kind of seasonal attention, from staging a home for its best light to understanding what a farm parcel is really worth on today's market, Tanya Mock Real Estate is a phone call away. Let's Connect.
