Pe Ell McDonald Road

Boistfort Valley Farm covers about 35 acres. We own 20 acres we call the "home place" where the house and barn are located. Of that we cultivate about 10. We also lease a large remote field from Werner Klee on Kahout Rd. This field totals 45 acres or more of which we cultivate about 12. Those twelve are a beautiful big rectangle that run from the river to the road. The soil near the river is a Chehalis mix; sandier toward the river and getting heavier as it slopes up to the road. Heidi's parents, John and Vicki, own 25 acres on Pe Ell McDonald Road. We also farm about 15 acres there.

The PeEll McDonald field is a real cocktail of soil types. It is very difficult to manage as it transitions from type to type with distinctly different textures and watering requirements. It is however a nice long field that was the recipient of years of dairy manure pumped from the pit on a nearby dairy. It grows beautiful brassicas, and for the past three years has also been home to our squash and corn.

Young squash soak up the sun at Pe Ell McDonald, later becoming the Sea of Squash you see below.

Brassicas, like the kale below, as well as broccoli and cauliflower do well in this phosphorous rich field.

Our corn, not quite knee high by the fourth of July, is loving the warm summer.

A note on acreage: though by most standards Boistfort Valley Farm is tiny, we are the largest farm of our kind in Lewis County, and probably one of the largest CSA/direct market farms in western Washington. I am always reminded, when speaking of acreage, of the metal sculptors I hung out with in Cincinnati in a past life. These guys where a breed of artist that one rarely meets. Macho to the core, so poor they used to melt down their previous work to get material for the next. I remember one late night in an abandoned warehouse turned studio listening to them judge each others work by gross weight, not artistic merit or some fine sense of the aesthetic, but tonnage.

I will always judge our success on the quality and taste of our product, our ability to communicate with our customers, and the quality of the environment here at the farm.