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Lee Family Farm Runs a Pike Place Highstall

Lee Family Farm grew from five acres to nearly 40 in Kent, Washington, and now runs its own highstall at Seattle's Pike Place Market.

<h2>The Highstall Lee Family Farm&#x27;s Five Acres Never Had</h2> <p>Christy and Xiong Lee run a produce highstall in Arcade No. 2 at Pike Place Market, at 1509 Pike Place in Seattle. Their family didn&#x27;t hold that space two decades ago. Lee Family Farm&#x27;s own account traces its start to 2001, when Lue and Pha Lee sowed the farm&#x27;s first seeds on five acres in Kent, Washington. Pike Place Market&#x27;s vendor page names only Pha Lee as the founder. The two closest sources to the farm don&#x27;t agree on who started it, and neither resolves the other. What both agree on is where that first plot sat, in the Kent Valley south of Seattle, and how small it was next to what the farm has become.</p> <h2>The First Harvests Never Reached a Market</h2> <p>The first harvests never reached a market. Lee Family Farm&#x27;s own history says the earliest crops were given to the Asian Counseling and Referral Service food bank in Seattle&#x27;s International District, with Pha Lee volunteering there weekly while the farm was still finding its feet. It fits a farm that started five acres wide and gave much of what it grew away before it ever sold any of it.</p> <h2>Forty Acres and a Generational Handoff</h2> <p>The farm works nearly 40 acres in the Kent Valley now, up from the five it started on twenty-five years ago, according to its own homepage. The handoff to the next generation is fuzzier. Its about page says Christy and Xiong Lee, the second generation, took over farm management roughly five years after the 2001 start, putting the handoff around 2006, while Pike Place Market&#x27;s vendor page describes the operation more loosely, as second-generation Hmong-owned and cultivating those nearly 40 acres, without giving a year for when that generation took charge. The acreage grew in stages nobody dated precisely, and so did the handoff that came with it.</p> <h2>A Produce Stall Where Hmong Farms Mostly Sell Flowers</h2> <p>Hmong farmers make up close to 60 percent of the farm vendors at Pike Place Market, and some have sold there for decades longer than the Lees. Xee Yang-Schell&#x27;s Yang Farm has operated at the market since 1987. See Lee Garden joined the market&#x27;s Indochinese Farm Project in 1986, a county-backed program that started in 1982 with six refugee families and eventually helped more than 80 into flower growing at the market, a program Lee Family Farm&#x27;s 2001 start had no part in. Both operations built around flowers, without a dedicated produce highstall. Lee Family Farm&#x27;s own case runs on bok choy, yu choy, mustard greens and watercress instead. Whether the farm belongs to the Washington Hmong Farmers Cooperative, a group formed in 2022 that now counts 14 member farms, is not confirmed by any source available.</p> <h2>The Kent Farm Behind the Highstall</h2> <p>The market stall is one outlet for a farm that still operates from 4308 South 212th Street in Kent. Through the growing season, it also runs a u-pick strawberry stand there: Chandler berries in June, the everbearing Albion variety later in summer, priced at $4 a pound to pick yourself or $4 to $38 for baskets already picked. That stand is closed right now. The farm&#x27;s own site marks it to reopen in 2026, a reminder that the Seattle highstall is one of several ways the family sells what it grows.</p> <h2>What the Greens Are, By the Farm&#x27;s Own Words</h2> <p>The highstall&#x27;s case is built around bok choy, yu choy, mustard greens and watercress, which Pike Place Market&#x27;s own vendor page describes as chemical and pesticide free. Neither the farm&#x27;s website nor its market listing claims anything beyond that: no nutrient counts, no performance language, nothing pitched at anyone training for anything. The same stall sells handcrafted dried flower arrangements, wreaths and small bouquet magnets. The greens themselves move through other Seattle-area farmers markets, specialty grocers and restaurants, well beyond the Pike Place case. For a reader who lifts weights or runs and wants more greens on the plate, that&#x27;s the entire pitch. Fresh. Grown without chemicals. Sold by the family that grew them. Nothing more than that.</p> <h2>The Highstall in Arcade No. 2</h2> <p>The highstall itself sits in Arcade No. 2 at Pike Place Market, next to Market Grill, open seven days a week. It is a piece of a business that started by giving vegetables away, and the only piece of Lee Family Farm&#x27;s story that carries a Seattle street address instead of a Kent one. Twenty-five years after five acres in the Kent Valley, that address reads 1509 Pike Place.</p>

The Highstall Lee Family Farm's Five Acres Never Had

Christy and Xiong Lee run a produce highstall in Arcade No. 2 at Pike Place Market, at 1509 Pike Place in Seattle. Their family didn't hold that space two decades ago. Lee Family Farm's own account traces its start to 2001, when Lue and Pha Lee sowed the farm's first seeds on five acres in Kent, Washington. Pike Place Market's vendor page names only Pha Lee as the founder. The two closest sources to the farm don't agree on who started it, and neither resolves the other. What both agree on is where that first plot sat, in the Kent Valley south of Seattle, and how small it was next to what the farm has become.

The First Harvests Never Reached a Market

The first harvests never reached a market. Lee Family Farm's own history says the earliest crops were given to the Asian Counseling and Referral Service food bank in Seattle's International District, with Pha Lee volunteering there weekly while the farm was still finding its feet. It fits a farm that started five acres wide and gave much of what it grew away before it ever sold any of it.

Forty Acres and a Generational Handoff

The farm works nearly 40 acres in the Kent Valley now, up from the five it started on twenty-five years ago, according to its own homepage. The handoff to the next generation is fuzzier. Its about page says Christy and Xiong Lee, the second generation, took over farm management roughly five years after the 2001 start, putting the handoff around 2006, while Pike Place Market's vendor page describes the operation more loosely, as second-generation Hmong-owned and cultivating those nearly 40 acres, without giving a year for when that generation took charge. The acreage grew in stages nobody dated precisely, and so did the handoff that came with it.

A Produce Stall Where Hmong Farms Mostly Sell Flowers

Hmong farmers make up close to 60 percent of the farm vendors at Pike Place Market, and some have sold there for decades longer than the Lees. Xee Yang-Schell's Yang Farm has operated at the market since 1987. See Lee Garden joined the market's Indochinese Farm Project in 1986, a county-backed program that started in 1982 with six refugee families and eventually helped more than 80 into flower growing at the market, a program Lee Family Farm's 2001 start had no part in. Both operations built around flowers, without a dedicated produce highstall. Lee Family Farm's own case runs on bok choy, yu choy, mustard greens and watercress instead. Whether the farm belongs to the Washington Hmong Farmers Cooperative, a group formed in 2022 that now counts 14 member farms, is not confirmed by any source available.

The Kent Farm Behind the Highstall

The market stall is one outlet for a farm that still operates from 4308 South 212th Street in Kent. Through the growing season, it also runs a u-pick strawberry stand there: Chandler berries in June, the everbearing Albion variety later in summer, priced at $4 a pound to pick yourself or $4 to $38 for baskets already picked. That stand is closed right now. The farm's own site marks it to reopen in 2026, a reminder that the Seattle highstall is one of several ways the family sells what it grows.

What the Greens Are, By the Farm's Own Words

The highstall's case is built around bok choy, yu choy, mustard greens and watercress, which Pike Place Market's own vendor page describes as chemical and pesticide free. Neither the farm's website nor its market listing claims anything beyond that: no nutrient counts, no performance language, nothing pitched at anyone training for anything. The same stall sells handcrafted dried flower arrangements, wreaths and small bouquet magnets. The greens themselves move through other Seattle-area farmers markets, specialty grocers and restaurants, well beyond the Pike Place case. For a reader who lifts weights or runs and wants more greens on the plate, that's the entire pitch. Fresh. Grown without chemicals. Sold by the family that grew them. Nothing more than that.

The Highstall in Arcade No. 2

The highstall itself sits in Arcade No. 2 at Pike Place Market, next to Market Grill, open seven days a week. It is a piece of a business that started by giving vegetables away, and the only piece of Lee Family Farm's story that carries a Seattle street address instead of a Kent one. Twenty-five years after five acres in the Kent Valley, that address reads 1509 Pike Place.

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