TANGIER, Ind. – If you visit Sandlady’s Gourd Farm in the northwestern part of Parke County, Ind., you will quickly learn Helen Thomas really isn’t ‘out of her gourd’.

At this quaint farm you will see hundreds of gourds. Growing gourds is a passion of the Sandlady, a name derived from the sandy soil from which Thomas grows gourds.

“It all started in 1988 when my nephew came home from school one day with two boxes of seeds to sell for the school and each box was worth $15 apiece,” Thomas said. “I knew he probably wouldn’t sell them, so I bought them from him and each box had a few packets of gourd seeds. I planted those seeds and the rest is history.”

In 1989, Thomas went to an Ohio Gourd Society show with a friend. The following year she went to the same show, accompanied by her husband, Ronnie. There they learned how to market and sell gourds through events, festivals and eventually on the internet.

“He came home so excited and built a trellis and we planted a whole bunch of gourds,” Thomas said.

Thomas has been farming since 1970, when she and Ronnie initially farmed cantaloupe and watermelons. They also grew pumpkins. But by 1991, gourds became this family’s mainstay as she decided to plant only the hard-shell ornamental fruit. At the farm’s peak, the couple had 56 acres, topping out at 150 trailer loads, each holding 200 to 300 gourds.

Her venture with gourds led to Sandlady’s Gourd Farm, where Thomas now grows up to three acres of gourds and adds her artistic touch to the gourds, from making musical instruments, bird houses, bottles and scoops.

By using a trellis, the weight of the gourd pulls down on the plant so one can make a long-handled gourd. The longest gourd grown by Thomas was six feet.

Thomas grows the gourds for other people’s uses as well as her own. She’s quite the craftsman, using her wood burning talents to make Christmas ornaments and gifts with her creations. One of her favorite designs in the Santa Claus gourd.

 “I live in Parke County, home to the Covered Bridge Festival. I design covered bridges on some of my gourds, as well as pictures of mills, barns and landscapes,” she said.

Thomas picks her gourds in the fall, places them in wagons inside her barn to dry during the winter months, then power washes them inside a huge tub in the spring before allowing them to dry.

“I used to leave them on the ground and allow visitors to pick them, but the mice can get to them, so I started getting them off the ground and putting them on a wagon inside the barn,” she said.

“The hardest part about growing gourds is cultivating them and dealing with weeds and the insects,” she said. “Occasionally the gourds get hit with a disease. I’ve learned that if you use a different field each year you don’t have disease issues, but when I do, I simply pull that plant up and send it to Plant Diagnostics at Purdue University.

“Gourds form into different shapes. I never dreamed what they would do to me. I planted two rows the first year, then planted four rows the next year, and a quarter of an acre the following year. I had a barn full of gourds and I didn’t know how to sell them. I didn’t know much about them, I just liked them.”

Thomas produces a variety of gourds, including kettle, cannonball, basketball, long handle dipper, Tennessee spinner and purple martin. Other varieties include banana, crown of thorns, mini kettle, luffa, egg, vase, apple, penguin, warty, bottle and club. Her gourd prices range from $1 to $100.

“The darker colored the gourd the better,” Thomas said. “It produces a harder shell that can be used for instruments, such as a thunder drum gourd.”

Thomas has a gourd museum which exhibits various types of art on gourds, such as painting, carving, sculpture, wood-burning, musical, chip carving, weaving and others. She has given hundreds of presentations for various groups such as the State Master Gardeners of Illinois (Danville), IVY Tech and Purdue’s Breaking New Ground program.

Thomas, who is a member of the Indiana Gourd Society, has three children, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren whom she teaches art on gourds.

“Gourds can be addictive,” she said.

The Sandlady’s Gourd Farm can be found at 10295 N. 700 W. in Tangier.