Pursuing a better life for his family, one Renton pumpkin farmer is setting aside his career for a simple life of hard work.

“It’s all about the sacrifice to build the dream,” said Dehvee Enciso, who opened Enciso Farms, Renton’s largest pumpkin patch, with his wife Melissa.

Their hope wasn’t for wealth but to build a better place for their four children to grow and their community to gather.

Attracting families from West Seattle to Bellevue, it was so successful last year, that Enciso had to order an additional 80,000 pounds of pumpkins to supplement his crop.

“If that’s a problem, then that’s a problem to have,” he said.

Despite heavy rains this year, he’s already moved the farm’s reserve crops to the picking field.

The 15-acres of land is complete with an original 1890s farmhouse and a white windmill.

Inside the original red barn, preschoolers sit on plastic buckets. Daylight shines through cracks in the walls onto antique wood wagons. Baskets of pumpkins and hay glow with harvest colors.

Enciso’s father, owner of the popular Issaquah drive in XXX Root Beer, purchased the farmland August 2004.

The restaurant attracts the classic car community, and as a result Enciso Farms has been offered several vintage tractors.

When the land was first purchased, the buildings were dilapidated so stylistically that Hollywood scouted it out for a scene in a horror film.

Not hearing a response, Enciso started work in October 2004.

Two years later the producers came back but were upset to see the changes and found a new location. He suspects the film was “Twilight.”

“Out of it all, we win,” Enciso said, pleased with the farm’s progress.

The family hopes to move into the house Spring 2010, which would make feeding the animals easier.

Chickens, goats, bunnies and turkeys (named Thanksgiving, Christmas and Leftovers) fill pins along the parking lot.

The animals were once allowed to walk free at night, but coyotes ate too many of them.

The entrance to the farm is decorated well by two corn mazes, one with shorter corn stalks for parents to watch little ones.

The store, a smaller red barn, overlooks the pumpkin patch and is filled with gourds and sweet pumpkins.

Farm life is new to the family.

“My wife and I grew up as city kids,” Enciso said. “I lived a really bad life…gangs, drugs, trouble.”

After his last bad stint he ended up in a church, begging for a way out. He became a Christian in 2002 and married his wife.

Their perspective on life changed; family came first. Enciso began asking successful co-workers if they had any regrets.

“If they could do it all over they wouldn’t neglect their kids,” he said. After some thought the couple decided, “Let’s let our kids grow up in the dirt with tractors.”

Right now, Enciso works a full-time job at the Seattle Department of Transportation to make ends meet.

With only one full-time worker, the family relies heavily on family contribution and help from volunteers.

Rainier Christian Middle schoolers spent a day picking gourds and sweet pumpkins for community service hours.

“It’s becoming a place where the community comes together,” Enciso said.

Because of the family’s faith, the farm keeps away from Halloween horror and sticks to the happy harvest theme.

It keeps families, especially with young kids, coming back.

“It’s all about family,” he said. “It fills you up.”