Johnson’s Pumpkin Farm: Corn Maze, Hay Sculptures & Fall Fun in Michigan

Where the Hot Cocoa Rating System Was Born

We rolled up to Johnson’s Pumpkin Farm around 3pm on one of those perfect overcast fall days where the sky is doing that moody gray thing and everything feels very atmospheric. The map at the entrance showed us everything this place had to offer—corn maze, soybean maze, sunflower maze, concessions, hay characters, photo ops, and approximately a million things to do. The plan was simple: hit the corn maze first, then wander around and take pictures of everything else.

But before any of that could happen, I needed hot cocoa. You don’t tackle a corn maze without a warm drink in hand. That’s just not how this works.

The Cocoa Acquisition

We made our way to the concession stand and joined the inevitable orchard line. There are always long lines at orchards, and honestly? I love that. It’s part of the whole experience—standing there with other people who also made the very reasonable decision to spend their afternoon at a pumpkin patch. I got myself a cup of hot cocoa for $2.50, and with that secured, we were ready.

Johnson’s Pumpkin Farm Corn Maze Adventures

The corn maze at Johnson’s is INSANE. The corn is so tall that even Shaq couldn’t see over it. You’re just fully enclosed in this labyrinth of stalks, no visibility, no sense of direction, just vibes and bad decisions.

Zach had a theory: “We won’t get lost if we only make right turns.”

Solid logic, right? Systematic. Foolproof. Except 45 minutes later, we were still making right turns and still very much lost in the maze. I could feel my faith in the right-turn method completely evaporating with every dead end we hit.

So I went absolutely OFF PROGRAM and took a left. One single left turn. And within minutes—MINUTES—we found the exit.

So there’s that.

Hay Characters at Johnson’s Pumpkin Farm

After escaping the maze, we started actually exploring the grounds, and that’s when I realized Johnson’s Pumpkin Farm went absolutely ALL IN on pop culture hay sculptures. I need you to understand the scale of this operation. These aren’t cute little scarecrows. These are 8-foot-tall recreations of cartoon characters made entirely out of straw and hay, and they are EVERYWHERE.

We’re talking giant Bluey characters—like, multiple Bluey family members scattered across the property. There are PAW Patrol dogs the size of actual vehicles. Mickey and Minnie Mouse looking very official in their hay form. Bart and Homer Simpson rendered in full hay glory, complete with Homer’s white shirt and blue pants.

But my personal favorite, because I’m an 80’s kid and you can’t take the nostalgia out of me? The Smurfs. Papa Smurf and Smurfette, both done up in blue-painted hay with those iconic little white hats. Standing between those giant Smurfs felt like stepping into a weird, crafty time warp, and I was absolutely here for it.

The Mystery Machine Incident

Okay, so there’s a Mystery Machine photo op. It’s a wooden cutout of the van from Scooby-Doo, and you stick your head through the driver’s side window to get the shot. Easy, right? WRONG.

I set up for the photo, Zach’s got the camera, I’m doing my thing—peace sign, cute pose, nailed it. I thought it was perfect. And then I hear Zach, barely audible, say: “I can see your feet.”

Your feet are NOT supposed to be in the Mystery Machine shot. The illusion is ruined. The whole point is that you look like you’re driving the van, not standing behind a cardboard cutout like some kind of amateur.

So I had to get creative, which in this case meant crouching down on this tiny wooden board—maybe a 2×4, maybe two of them, I don’t know, it was SMALL—and trying to balance on my tippy toes while folding my entire body into a frame small enough that my feet would disappear below the bottom of the cutout.

This took a solid five minutes. I kept slipping off the board. My legs were shaking. Zach was laughing. I was laughing. It was absolutely ridiculous, and thank god no one else was around to witness this spectacle of me doing a weird crouch-squat-balance situation just to get a photo in a fake van.

But I got the shot. And that’s what matters.

The Structures You Can’t Miss

Johnson’s has this whole collection of random structures scattered around the property, and each one is its own little moment. There’s a massive silo painted like a jack-o-lantern—and when I say massive, I mean Zach looks small standing next to it. It’s got the classic triangle eyes and nose, the big toothy grin, the whole thing. It’s a silo-sized pumpkin, which feels both unnecessary and absolutely essential to the pumpkin farm experience.

Then there are the birdhouse houses. Yes, houses FOR birdhouses. These weathered wooden shed structures are absolutely covered in birdhouses—hanging from the rafters, mounted on the walls, stacked on shelves, scattered across the floor. Someone looked at a regular shed and said “what if this was a home for dozens of tiny bird homes” and just committed to the bit. There are Christmas signs mixed in, rustic charm everywhere, and the whole thing has this chaotic crafty energy that I absolutely respect.

There’s also a real vintage fire truck just sitting there, painted red and looking very official. Not a cutout, not a prop—an actual old fire truck that someone parked at a pumpkin farm and said “yeah, this works here.”

And of course, there’s Thomas the Tank Engine. A full-size Thomas cutout where you can stick your head through the window and pretend to be the conductor. Zach looked very serious in his role as Thomas’s driver, and honestly, the commitment to the photo op was inspiring.

Thrones and Pumpkin Palaces

There are two thrones at Johnson’s, and they’re both very committed to their themes.

First, there’s Johnson’s Donut Hole throne—a bench surrounded by painted wooden donuts stacked floor to ceiling, with “Johnson’s Donut Hole” emblazoned across the top. It’s whimsical. It’s carb-forward. And exactly the kind of thing you sit on and immediately feel like pumpkin patch royalty.

Then there’s the Giant Pumpkin Throne, which is what it sounds like: an orange throne made of wooden pumpkin cutouts, bold and seasonal and very serious about its pumpkin identity. Both are absolutely sit-able, both are photo op gold, and both made me feel like I was participating in some kind of autumnal coronation ceremony.

But the real architectural marvel? The Pumpkin House. This thing is a wooden structure with shelves and shelves of pumpkins stacked up to the sky—like, legitimate rows and rows of them, creating this towering archway you can walk through. It’s a pumpkin cathedral. It’s excessive in the best possible way. You stand in the middle of it and you’re just surrounded by pumpkins on all sides, and it feels like someone said “what if we built a house out of pumpkins” and then actually did it. Respect.

Other Mazes at Johnson’s Pumpkin Farm (AKA The Dead But Beautiful Ones)

In addition to the corn maze, there’s also a soybean maze and a sunflower maze. Both were, how do I put this delicately, at the end of their lives. The soybean maze was mostly dead leaves with one rogue sunflower that apparently missed the memo about which maze it belonged to. That sunflower looked like it wandered over from next door and just decided to stay, and honestly, good for it.

The Sunflower Maze was pretty much dead too, but it still had this faded, end-of-summer beauty to it. Like, yeah, the flowers are toast, but there’s something kind of poetic about walking through a field of dried-out sunflowers under a gray sky. It’s melancholy in a good way.

The Birth of a Rating System

Remember that hot cocoa I got at the beginning? Let’s talk about it. $2.50 for a cup of hot cocoa mix and hot water. That’s it. No frills, no whipped cream, no fancy presentation. Just standard-issue orchard cocoa.

Now, this is not a complaint. I knew what I was getting into. But here’s the thing: hot cocoa is MY JAM. I don’t make hot chocolate—I cultivate an experience. So standing there with my $2.50 cup of perfectly adequate cocoa, walking through a corn maze, balancing it while trying not to spill it during the Mystery Machine photo debacle, I had a thought: I should rate every hot cocoa I drink.

And thus, the Nancy Rating System was born.

Johnson’s Pumpkin Farm is the kind of place where you show up for one thing and end up spending hours just wandering around finding giant hay Smurfs and struggling to take photos in fake vans. It’s chaotic, it’s charming, and it’s exactly the kind of fall experience that makes you take 52 pictures and still feel like you didn’t capture all of it. 10/10, would get lost in a corn maze again. Check it out 🎃Here 🎃for ALL the info!

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Want the fall chaos in motion? I put together a short reel of our adventure —  Come say hi over there:

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Planning more fall stops? Check out our Things To Do In Michigan guide for more cozy small-town adventures.