Little Red Hen Ranch

New crop 2026, fresh tomatoes.

First cherry tomatoes. Gold grape, SnowWhite, red/black cherry.

1st Marigold bloom, from a volunteer plant that I then transplanted to another flower bed.

We have green eggs, have you some ham,
green eggs we got, you could get spam,
some eggs are green, go well with lamb,
come get some green eggs, this year at NFAM!

Apologies to Dr. Seuss!

Thru the summer season, Little Red Hen Ranch
will have green eggs for sale at Newton Farm & Art Market, Halstead Farmers Market and Hesston Farmer’s Market.

And we all pray for rain!

Something new has been added. Hens at the Little Red Hen Ranch are now offering more colors. We consistently get 3-4, sometimes 5 shades of Brown, 2 'new' shades of green/olive, a second more Blue shade and always white eggs. Color by Mother Nature and selective management.

Your weather app shows air temperature. Your seeds don't care about air temperature.

They care about what's happening four inches below the surface at nine in the morning. A warm afternoon means nothing if the soil is still cold where the seed sits.

One thermometer changes everything. Push it four inches deep, check at 9 AM, and the number tells you exactly what to plant today — not what the calendar says, not what the seed packet suggests, but what the soil is actually ready for.

🌱 The short version:

- Cool soil (low 40s) — peas, spinach, radish. These crops prefer cold. Planting them in warm soil actually hurts performance
- Warming soil (around 50) — lettuce, carrots, beets, potatoes. The salad-and-roots window
- Warm soil (low 60s) — transplant tomatoes, peppers, eggplant. Below this, their roots can't absorb water efficiently even if the soil is moist
- Hot soil (upper 60s and above) — beans, cucumbers, squash, melons. Seeds that sit in cold soil for two weeks will germinate in days once the soil catches up

The thermometer costs less than one flat of transplants you'd lose to cold soil.

Plant to the thermometer, not the calendar 🌿

Earthworms mating????? Or something else? Had about an inch of rain since it started raining a day ago.