![\"Carolyn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/c1a06ace6f9b730eec42ba82c3fc33174f25f2ff.png\")
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Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n Save this article for later<\/p>\n Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime.<\/p>\n Got it<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n If you tip-toe through the fields at Pick Your Own Sunflowers, you\u2019re sure to stumble on social media enthusiasts taking selfies.<\/p>\n But farmer Laiken Britt welcomes all-comers to her family\u2019s growing enterprise, which opened on Sunday in Dunnstown, east of Ballarat, for its seventh annual season.<\/p>\n Britt has seen couples dressed in sunflower costumes, yoga practitioners, and a wedding party pose among the petals, but many customers simply seek a mood-lifting break from a hectic world.<\/p>\n \u201cI think they want to be in nature,\u201d Britt says. \u201cThey drive up from the concrete jungle, in Melbourne or Ballarat, and it\u2019s fresh air. You get out of the car, and it\u2019s peaceful. Everyone says sunflowers never look miserable, they make you smile.\u201d<\/p>\n On Sunday, Tegan Kohlman, of Ballarat, was making her third visit in three years to Pick Your Own Sunflowers.<\/p>\n Kohlman picked six sunflowers and enjoyed sitting on a hay bale with views of nearby mountains.<\/p>\n She described the field as beautiful, lovely, peaceful and blissful. \u201cWhen you\u2019re deep into the sunflowers, sometimes you kind of forget there are other people around you.\u201d<\/p>\n Farm owner Britt says customers have brought in dogs, cats, cockatoos, even a pet chook.<\/p>\n Britt started Pick Your Own Sunflowers in 2020 as a fun sideline to the family\u2019s farm that\u2019s about mostly cattle but also wheat and barley. That month-long inaugural sunflower season was a hit, ending just as the pandemic began.<\/p>\n The best season came in 2021, with good weather and a bumper crop lasting six weeks.<\/p>\n Last year\u2019s season was curtailed due to drought.<\/p>\n The hope this year is to open five days a week from Wednesday to Sunday, for at least a month, with any changes announced on their website<\/a>. But Britt says: \u201cMother Nature is in charge, and we just roll with it.\u201d<\/p>\n Britt, formerly a hairdresser from the town of Matlock in England\u2019s Peak District, says she had \u201cnever met a farmer\u201d before coming to Dunnstown in 2010 to work on the Britt family\u2019s farm, where she met her now-husband Karl.<\/p>\n For Pick Your Own Sunflowers, the couple\u2019s sons Oscar, 14, Jai, 13, Billy, 12, and Ollie, 5, help them sell tickets, run a hay maze, and sell honey and potatoes from local farms.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Community groups raise money from sausage sizzles. The entry fee is $10 per person, with children under five free. Each stem customers pick costs $2.<\/p>\n Customers must bring their own bags or buckets, and can either bring or hire secateurs because stems are too thick to be broken off by hand.<\/p>\n Britt likes educating town kids, as she once was, about nature. The plants wilt and die within a month to six weeks, but the seeds can\u2019t be sold because frosts start in this area and the seeds don\u2019t harden.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n However, the cattle are let in to eat the plants, which Britt reckons they enjoy.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got the shiniest cattle in Dunnstown,\u201d she says. \u201cFrom the sunflower oil maybe. They look happy when they\u2019re in there.\u201d<\/p>\n Start the day with a summary of the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n![\"Flower](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/59c5e21f26ad81555e0af8335d29d36edd8b4a1c.jpeg\")
Flower power: Farmer Laiken Britt in the Pick Your Own Sunflowers field with three of her sons Ollie, 5, Billy, 12, and Jai,13.Chris Hopkins<\/p>\n![\"Peaceful](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0bfa5efc62609083b34a5f8be614aa825d99dfdd.jpeg\")
Peaceful day out: Tegan Kohlman, of Ballarat, picks sunflowers.Chris Hopkins<\/p>\n![\"Pitching](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/69debd4cc67cf47e247dfee5a6aee5c0f0a584f9.jpeg\")
Pitching in: Brothers Jai, left, and Oscar Britt make twisty potatoes to sell to Pick Your Own Potatoes customers.Chris Hopkins<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/7539bacaa5820cf0d7ae7c5f2f0c45082fd44d68.jpeg\")
The Vyas family from Sydney take selfies amid the sunflower crop on Sunday.Chris Hopkins<\/p>\n