For 30 years, Ballard resident Ron Moe-Lobeda has had a love for gardening. But it wasn't until he and wife Cynthia sent their youngest of two boys to college that Moe-Lobeda was able to turn his entire yard into a vegetable garden.

“When we moved out here I wanted to do a garden on the street but I became concerned about the carbon,” he said. “So I quit that and tried it in the backyard, I let it be for a number of years because we had two sons running around the yard.”

Moe-Lobeda said once his boys hit high school he started a garden on the side of the house and since sending his youngest to college this year he looked at the front yard and said, “I’m ready.”

Moe-Lobeda has been growing peas, radishes, spinach, onions, turnips, broccoli and lettuce, and now has a second planting of carrots, zucchinis, tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers and brussels sprouts in his home garden at 623 N.W. 80th St.

“My gold crop doesn’t really grow in the Northwest but I found the sunniest spot to grow it and I loved it back in D.C.,” he said.

The golden crop he referred to are his prized okra.

“I’m not sure if it’s going to make it but thankfully it’s been very hot this year,” Moe-Lobeda said. “It still has a ways to go because it can grow up to six or seven feet.

Thanks to a flourishing garden of vegetables, Moe-Lobeda and his wife eat fresh vegetables often.

“For me, it’s my hobby, so that’s the main benefit I can get out of here,” he said. “Every morning I have some solitude and can be in touch with the earth. Not everybody is going to go this extent but it takes a lot of time and T.L.C. to keep things growing."