KELPS
Greenhouse & Pumpkin Patch
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Peggy Kelp. photo by Bob Gustin
~ by Bob Gustin
Peggy Kelp has always lived within a few miles of what is now her nursery and pumpkin patch on Indiana 46 between Gnaw Bone and Columbus. As a young girl, she remembers riding her horse from her home on Mount Liberty Road, just south of the nursery, to visit her grandparents in the century-old farmhouse where she now lives. She even remembers watching that house being moved on big rolling logs to make way for the new highway. Her grandparents had a general store and gas station there, and her parents grew Indian corn and other crops to wholesale.
Though that spot had been a store, nursery, pumpkin patch, and sorghum mill for decades before Kelp took over, under her watch it has grown into the greenhouse and garden center it is now.
“ The business gets a little better every year,” she said, with most of the advertising being word-of-mouth from satisfied customers.“ It’ s important to treat customers well. We want them to leave happy.”
Even as a child, she was working with nature, creating wreaths, bouquets, and arrangements and selling them to Michael’ s Flowers in Nashville. Eventually, she got a job there when she was 13 years old, and her time at Michael’ s is what inspired her to build the greenhouse portion of the business.
Kelp’ s Greenhouse and Pumpkin Patch is very much a family business. The current
16 Our Brown County • Sept./ Oct. 2026