The most ride-heavy and most expensive farm in this Indiana batch at $22 a head on weekends, with everything bundled into one ticket - but the rides do not start until an hour after the gate opens, and the season's own published dates contradict each other.
Weekday admission is $17 and weekend admission is $22; children under 3 are free and a season pass is $40, sold online only. Active military get in free and veterans pay half price. Dated discounts include $5 off for grandparents on September 20, $5 off for teachers on September 27 and $5 off for healthcare workers and first responders on October 25.
Rough cost for a family of four: about $68.00 in admission alone at the posted starting rate, before pumpkins, food, parking or any add-on listed above. Most families end up well north of that once they are through the gate.
Lark Ranch Lanesville is the outlier in this batch. Where the other Indiana farms here are orchards or dairies with a pumpkin patch bolted on, this one is closer to a small seasonal amusement park that happens to grow pumpkins. A mile-long train ride, a carousel, a set of amusement rides, bounce pillows, pedal carts, pony rides and gem mining sit alongside the corn maze and the u-pick field, and all of it is included in one admission.
That is a genuinely different proposition, and it prices accordingly.
Weekend admission is $22 a head, so two adults and two school-age children pay $88 before they have bought a pumpkin. That is the highest gate in this Indiana batch by a wide margin - Fair Oaks charges $5, Huber’s Family Farm Park charges $6, Joe Huber’s charges nothing.
The defence is that those farms charge for things separately and this one does not. There is no All Access tier here, no ride bracelet, no per-attraction ticket booth. You pay once and the carousel, the train, the pony rides and the gem mining are all yours.
The consequence is that a short visit is bad value. If you are going to be there for ninety minutes, $88 is a poor deal and one of the cheaper farms nearby will serve you better. If you are going to be there from noon until closing on a Saturday, working through the whole ride list, $88 for four people is competitive with any comparable attraction.
Children under three are free, which meaningfully changes the arithmetic for households with toddlers: two adults and two under-3s is $44, not $88.
The $40 season pass is sold online only, not at the gate. At weekend rates, two visits cost $176 for a family of four against $160 for four passes. So the pass wins from the second trip, and wins substantially by the third. If you live in the Louisville area and your children liked it the first time, buy passes.
The dated discount calendar is worth actually reading rather than skimming. Five dollars off for grandparents on September 20. Five dollars off for teachers on September 27. Five dollars off for healthcare workers and first responders on October 25. Active military free all season, veterans half price all season.
One oddity to flag honestly: the grandparents discount is dated September 20, which falls before the September 26 season start recorded elsewhere on the same page. We cannot reconcile that from published information. If you were planning to use it, call first.
The gate opens at 11am on Saturday and Sunday. Amusement rides and food stands start one hour later.
This is the detail most likely to spoil a visit. A family that leaves home to be there at opening arrives to find the carousel still, the train parked and nowhere to buy lunch - with children who were promised rides. The corn maze, the pumpkin field and the animal encounters are all available in that first hour, and Highland cows are a reliable distraction, but it is not what anyone paid $22 expecting at 11am.
The straightforward fix is to arrive at noon. You lose an hour of a nine-hour Saturday and gain a day where everything works from the moment you walk in.
Saturday runs to 8pm; Sunday closes at 6pm. That two-hour Saturday tail is the most interesting part of the schedule, because by six most families with small children have gone. Southern Indiana in mid-October is fully dark by then, which changes the corn maze considerably and makes the lit rides the main event.
It also gets cold. A Saturday that ends at 8pm on October 24 is an evening outdoors in Harrison County in late autumn, and a jacket is not enough - layers are. That is a different visit from a 1pm arrival in late September, at the same price.
First, the season dates. The ranch’s own page says weekends September 27 to October 31 in one place and September 26 in another. Second, whether weekdays are open at all, because the $17 weekday rate is advertised against a schedule that describes only Saturdays and Sundays. Neither contradiction is resolved in anything published, and both are single phone calls to 844-516-6837.
Weekends from late September through October 31, 2026. Saturday runs 11am to 8pm and Sunday 11am to 6pm, so Saturday is the longer day by two hours and the only one that gives you an evening. Arrive at noon rather than 11am if the rides are the draw: amusement rides and food stands do not start until one hour after opening, so the first hour is maze, animals and pumpkin field only. The farm's own page gives the season start as both September 26 and September 27 in different places; September 26 is the earlier of the two and we have used it, but confirm before travelling on that specific date.
Four to five hours. At $22 a head with a mile-long train, a carousel, amusement rides, bounce pillows, hayrides, pedal carts, pony rides and gem mining all included, a two-hour visit wastes most of what you paid for.
Roughly twenty minutes from Louisville, which drives heavy Kentucky traffic on October Saturdays. A weekends-only schedule across five or six weekends concentrates that further. Saturday evenings, with the gate open to 8pm, are the one part of the schedule with genuine breathing room - most families with young children will have gone home by six.
Not published. Harrison County farm lots are typically grass or gravel and October in southern Indiana is wet, so plan for a soft surface rather than a paved one.
Not published. The ride-heavy format means much of the site is fixed-plant attractions rather than open field, which usually helps, but nothing is documented. The mile-long train ride is the obvious way to cover distance without walking it; ask about boarding on 844-516-6837.
You want a cheap, quick pumpkin stop. Twenty-two dollars a head on a weekend is the highest gate in this batch and it only makes sense if you stay for hours. Skip an 11am arrival specifically if amusement rides are the reason you are coming, since they will not be running yet.
Louisville is about twenty minutes away and is the natural base for this trip. Note that Lark Ranch also runs separate locations in Loogootee and Greenfield, Indiana - check you are heading to Lanesville, since prices and schedules will not necessarily match across sites.
Weekend admission is $22 and weekday admission is $17. Children under 3 are free. A season pass is $40 and is sold online only. Active military get in free and veterans pay half price. The ticket covers the rides, the maze, the animals and the attractions; pumpkins from the u-pick field are the separate purchase.
One hour after the gate. The ranch opens at 11am on both Saturday and Sunday, and states that amusement rides and food stands start an hour later. If the carousel and the train are what your children are expecting, arriving at 11am sharp means an hour of corn maze and animal encounters first.
The farm's own page is inconsistent - it describes the season as weekends September 27 to October 31 in one place and as beginning September 26 in another. We have recorded the earlier date, September 26, but this is unresolved and worth confirming on 844-516-6837 if you are planning that specific opening weekend.
Unclear. The page advertises a $17 weekday rate while describing a weekends-only schedule of Saturdays and Sundays. That contradiction is not resolved anywhere we could read, so weekday openings may exist on dates not listed. Call before planning a weekday trip around the cheaper rate.
September 26 – October 31, 2026. Weekends, Saturday and Sunday. Hours: Saturday 11am-8pm; Sunday 11am-6pm; amusement rides and food stands start one hour after opening.
Admission starts at $17 per person. Weekday admission is $17 and weekend admission is $22; children under 3 are free and a season pass is $40, sold online only. Active military get in free and veterans pay half price. Dated discounts include $5 off for grandparents on September 20, $5 off for teachers on September 27 and $5 off for healthcare workers and first responders on October 25.
1565 St Johns Church Road NE, Lanesville, IN 47136, in Harrison County. It is one of 4 patches we track in Southern Indiana.
We track 4 patches in Southern Indiana, 1 of which are free to walk into. At $17 a head this one sits above the regional median of $12.
Its season runs about 36 days against a regional average of 36, so it is broadly in line with the rest of the region.
What sets it apart locally: it has farm animals, which most Southern Indiana patches on our list do not.
There is 1 other patch we track in Harrison County. All Southern Indiana patches →
larkranch.com
Checked August 2026.