Bates Nut Farm — Local services in Valley Center

This place is 5 minutes away from Valley View Casino. As you turn into the drive way, the patch is to your right and parking in the dirt is on the left. If you want a marked stall or be by the grass park, you can drive in further but limited parking.

This place is massive and so organized! All the jumbo oversized pumpkins are scattered in the back, the small and medium sized were bunched up in a pile in the middle like canon balls. The tiny hand held pumpkins were separated in cardboard bins in the front near the check out.

Outside away from the pumpkin patch area exists a nice grass area with picnic tables, animal area, petting zoo, pony ride, straw maze, wagon ride, and a few food trucks. However only Mariposa Ice cream was opened.

The pony ride does require cash or Venmo only and you have to be a certain height. The petting zoo is next door to the pony ride. But the animal area with goats, chickens, ostrich, etc is on the side as the patch. They have an outdoor sink for you to wash your hands. You can only pet them through the fence and can buy food pellets to feed the chickens.

Out in the distance is a straw maze that cost $3 a person and to pay at the ticket booth but on this particular day, the booth was closed and people just walked in. The straw haystack is like 3ft tall. There’s a tractor wagon that takes you around the haystack.

The last big attraction is the Bates Nut Farm Store! So many different types of nuts, fruits, pickles, honey, preservatives, trinkets. There’s a chocolate deli in the back. Enormous selection of tea and candles. There’s a back room full of Christmas items.

We went on a Thursday and got there at 11 thinking that we would be the only people there but we were wrong! So many families must have gotten here when they opened at 9. So go early on in the season to get the best pumpkins and practice social distancing.

There’s plenty of wheel barrels but I’m guessing on a weekend or busy day, it’ll be taken.

There are portable toilets between the patch and animal area as well as over by the straw maze. However, if you want clean restroom, it’s next to Bates Nut Farm store.

Parking is free on weekdays and $5 on the weekend. There are more food vendors and activities on weekends so check...

I have been coming to Bates Nut Farm for their fall pumpkin patch for about 3 years now. It is always packed on the weekends during fall, but that is to be expected. I cannot fathom how anyone would complain about paying a whopping $5 for parking, though I do understand the frustration with traffic coming in. With that, I highly recommend you go as early as possible because the traffic really can get absurdly backed up if you go late.

There are lots of fun events on the weekends around Halloween. I attended, and loved, their Halloween costume contest for dogs! People really put a lot of effort into some of the costumes and it is very entertaining. There are vendors selling things like shaved ice and lemonade for $5-8, which I compare with a standard event/fair price. The General Store is awesome, and has a huge selection of candy, nuts, jams, and even housemade fudge which I can attest to being excellent (even better than at the Del Mar Fair).

The horse carriagen and tractor rides are a bit hokey and not really all that awesome for adults, but it is cool for the kiddos. The maze can be fun though. The pumpkin patch is HUGE and you can even go pick your own pumpkin that is still in the ground on the field! They have a range of tiny to giant pumpkins. Will you pay a premium for a pumpkin? Yes. But I would be surprised, and a little disappointed, if you didn't already expect that.

All in all, I highly recommend checking it out, at least during Halloween time, but I also highly recommend going early and bringing your own...

The pumpkin patch was fairly large, had many extra large pumpkins in the field which makes for cool pictures, had a few areas designed to take pics with hay and corn decor. a fair amount of food selection, some farm animals, and petting zoo (goats) area, pony ride, hay ride, & corn maze.

The only reason i’m giving 3 stars is because parking was cash only (5 dollars ) as was many other things were also cash only. especially with covid now we don’t carry cash as we haven’t had this issue anywhere else, if we had not gone with our family (who lent us cash) we wouldn’t have been able to even enter the farm which would have been a disappointment.

Additionally their bathrooms (portable) did not have any water left in their hand washing area, this is something i believe in this time period should be maintained and kept stocked up. portable bathrooms are disgusting as is, regardless of covid and maintaining hand hygiene your portable sinks should have water in them for guests to wash their hands after using the bathroom.

Other than this masks were enforced, with an employee designated to do mask patrol (with a sign that said mask patrol ) and would requests guests who didn’t have their masks on to...