Berry patch centerpiece of renewed family farm

GLEED -- When her grandparents lived here, on this little piece of heaven on the top of the hill, cherry trees prospered on the plateau.

Lee Goll remembers combing through the orchard as a kid, feeling the sunshine on her face, breathing the sweet country air. She was a city girl. And this place made her happy.

"It was just a fun place to be," says Lee, now 61. "There were no streets. You could see the stars. It was beautiful. It was full of cherry trees."

Wild asparagus also thrived on the ranch. So did her grandmother's hollyhocks and a feeling of freedom. Decades later, they still do.

But there's a new crop on this plot -- and a renewed sense of purpose. Lee and her husband Chuck will soon be opening their Harmony Hill U-Pick Raspberries and Lavender farm on this hill northeast of Gleed.

The goal is to become a popular stop on the Yakima Valley's agri-tourism map -- maybe even make enough to pay the taxes and do the upkeep -- and eventually get certified organic. The couple have been growing these dreams in a ripening raspberry patch.

"They're not quite ready," says Lee, a former family law attorney, standing among the stalks, pointing out the small, red, fragrant bramble fruits. "It'll be, I think, another couple, three weeks."

Then, she's hoping to have picnickers on the lawn and laughter in the rows of raspberry bushes. She's hoping, she says, to bring life back to her grandparents' old place.

"That's really want I want to grow here: happy people," she says.

The Golls left their old lives in the Seattle area five years ago, moving to Gleed when Lee inherited the ranch from her uncle. But the roots that connect her to this property stretch back further than that.

Her grandparents, Bruce and Myrtle Battenfield, came here in the 1930s, farming 35 acres of cherries, along with the occasional peach tree and that ever-present wild asparagus. Their oldest son, Rex, lived on the land until he could no longer care for it, leaving the land to Lee.

"It just died around him," says Lee, whose uncle was in his 90s when he passed away a few years ago. By then, many of the cherry trees had died, and the property had fallen into disrepair.

Still, Lee says, "It was a gift. It was a gift from God.

"I wanted it to be green again," she says. "I wanted to be growing something. I wanted there to be happy people here, just like I remembered."

There was plenty to do to revitalize the ranch, and the Golls got to work. They cleared dead trees, installed a triple-wide manufactured home, built a garage and workshop, grew a garden, researched options, added an above-ground, drip irrigation system and planted an experimental patch of raspberries, about 250 plants, all of which came from Cowiche Creek Nursery.

"Chuck is a management consultant. I worked in law. We knew nothing about raspberries," Lee says. But, one thing was certain: "I wanted it to be U-pick rather than me-pick."

Today, Harmony Hill U-Pick Raspberries and Lavender is one of about a dozen U-pick farms in the Yakima Valley, offering people a chance to harvest their own bundles of vegetables, herbs, fruit and berries. The season generally runs from July to October, depending on the crop.

"Raspberries are labor-intensive," Lee says. "It's hand and knee. You have to be up close and personal."

Chuck, 81, admits he was "apprehensive" about the project. But, "We've been talking about it since we moved here," he says. "We're figuring out how to do it."

Chuck still works part-time as a management consultant, facilitating corporate training as well as training for city administration.

Lee was an attorney for 26 years.

While there are some things the couple say they miss about the Seattle area -- the saltwater and a broader choice of restaurants -- they like the lifestyle here, the lack of traffic, the sense of community.

"We do so enjoy this spot," Lee says. "It seems to put things in perspective, living here."

This summer, Goll's experiment stretches some 5 or 6 feet into the sun. Berries should be ready for picking in the first or second week of August. Harvest runs about eight weeks.

There'll be a limited crop this year. But next summer, the 1,200 bushes they added this spring should be ripe and ready.

And in two years, the Golls, who have been married nearly 11 years and have a handful of grown children, grandkids and great-grandkids between them, plan to add another 1,500 plants.

Meantime, they have 1,450 plants in 44 rows on about 21/2 of their 35 acres.

"It's been kind of an adventure for us," says Lee, who enjoys making jams, dessert sauces and fruit leather out of the highly perishable berries that are rich in antioxidants.

"We're very serious," she says. "We really want to be a vital part of the Yakima Valley economy in our niche."

She encourages people to call ahead once the berry-picking season starts.

"We might get picked out," she says. "We've already gotten a lot of e-mails: Are you open yet?"