The mornings are dark and the hours of evening sunlight no longer stretch to 9 p.m. While it’s still 80 degrees outside by day, the specter of cold is upon us.
As fall approaches, the sunflower festival at Cross E Ranch provides a much needed post-summer pick-me-up.
The Cross E Ranch is just 10 minutes from downtown Salt Lake City by car. You can also bicycle down the Jordan River Trail, which ends less than a half-mile from the ranch’s parking lot.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) A sunflower stands in a field at Cross E Ranch during the Sunflower Festival in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 11, 2023. A late summer celebration of the flowers and other farm fun continues through Sept. 20.
Pulling up to the ranch you’re greeted by cornfields to the left and, as the Cross E advertises, “16 football fields worth” of sunflowers to the right. The 20 different types of sunflowers — from towering golden varieties to the deep purple “velvet queen” — will keep the amateur botanist entertained.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Sunflowers stand in a field at Cross E Ranch during the Sunflower Festival in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 11, 2023.
On Monday around 4:30 p.m, a Tribune reporter met the cheerful and tanned Heather Limon, 54, who co-owns the ranch with her brother, Dalon Hinckley.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Heather Limon, co-owner of Cross E Ranch, points out various sunflowers as she walks through the fields during the Sunflower Festival in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 11, 2023. Limon and her brother, Dallon Hinckley, co-own the ranch and have repurposed it as a festival venue.
The siblings grew up on Cross E Ranch, which used to be a cattle farm. The property has been in their family for six generations now. While Limon loved working with cattle, that business now requires economies of scale impossible to achieve in an urban environment hemmed in by development and costly land prices.
When Limon’s father died, she and her brother set out to find a way to keep the ranch in the family. “It was really painful for me, I love the cows,” Limon said. “My brother actually likes plants more than cows so he wasn’t very sad.”
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Horner family walks through the fields of sunflowers at Cross E Ranch during the Sunflower Festival in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 11, 2023.
They decided to try a “direct-to-consumer” business model — holding a baby animal festival in the spring, summer camps and pumpkin patches and a corn maze in the fall. “We had over 100 baby animals last spring,” Limon said, “We bottle-feed over 50 goats and then I have my bottle-fed calves — about 15 or 20 bottle fed calves.”
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Michael Bourne holds open the hand of his grandson, Skyler Bourne, 5, as they prepare to feed the animals at Cross E Ranch during the Sunflower Festival in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 11, 2023.
They got into the sunflower business in 2020 in the early days of the pandemic.
“The sunflowers pretty much saved us that year,” Limon said. “Everyone had been locked up and they came out in July and it was full every night of people.”
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Heather Limon, co-owner of Cross E Ranch, points out the parts of a sunflower as she walks through the fields during the Sunflower Festival in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 11, 2023.
On Monday by 6 p.m. the parking lot was nearly full. A woman in a pink ankle-length dress with puffy sleeves wandered through the fields. Toddlers glanced up at the towering flower stocks. Families snipped a few flowers to take home — a mason jar’s worth costs $9.95. Across the road, sunflowers in hand, people picked up hot and sugary apple cider donuts. Thrill-seeking kids jumped into “corn pits,” traversed the “tough farmer” ropes course and slid down the “mega-slides” situated on a grassy hillside. Visitors fed goats, petted ponies and side-eyed a pair of llamas.
At the golden hour, the corn stalks gleamed and the onset of fall seemed a little less dreadful.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Children play in a corn pit at Cross E Ranch during the Sunflower Festival in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 11, 2023.
The Sunflower Festival will continue until September 20th.
It is open from Monday through Friday from 4-9 p.m. and on Saturday from 10 a.m. - 9 p.m.
Tickets must be purchased online here.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) A goat sticks its head between the bars for guests to pet at Cross E Ranch during the Sunflower Festival in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 11, 2023. The festival continues through Sept. 20.
