Hartshorn's Certified Organic Farm

04/08/2026

From our farm kitchen to your kitchen...

Free Nontoxic Kitchen Reimagined Course. $197 value. One winner.

A naturopathic doctor who took Amy's nontoxic kitchen course said it's perfect for her patients because she doesn't have the bandwidth to cover all the details and research herself. And, that it was "completely doable in one week."

A holistic veterinarian who took the course said, "freed me from needing to research each item" and "it's clear, concise and fun!"

Now one lucky winner gets it for free.

Here's how to enter the Nontoxic Kitchen Reimagined Giveaway: Complete my free kitchen assessment:

https://tally.so/r/GxrKYe

That's it and then you're in.
Refer a friend who also completes it?

Your name goes on the wheel an extra time for every friend who names you as a referral.

Contest is open now.
Entries close midnight ET on April 18.
Live wheel spin on my Youtube Channel on April 19.

Know someone who's been trying to clean up their kitchen without knowing where to start?

Tag them below or send them the link. Their entry helps you win.

04/03/2026

We're so happy that these two wonderful people, Laney and Jimmy D,, are coming back to work with us this season!

03/17/2026

Maple sugaring!
Dave was boiling last night until 2:30am...

The dedication of farmers is like nothing else I've seen.

03/11/2026

At the farm stand and on our food tours, people ask a lot of kitchen questions.

And honestly, they make sense. If you're going out of your way to buy organic or grow your own food, what happens to it in your kitchen matters too — the cookware, the storage containers, the labels on what you're buying.

One thing that surprises people most: the front of food packages isn't regulated by the FDA. Which explains a lot about why kitchen decisions feel so confusing.

After 30+ years researching food and nontoxic living, I created a short 5-day program called Your Nontoxic Kitchen, Reimagined — it walks through cookware, storage, food labels, and how to prioritize what actually matters.

The beta is open right now for $37 until March 16.
https://www.greenlivingnow.com/start-with-your-non-toxic-kitchen

And drop any kitchen questions below — those farm stand conversations are some of my favorites.

But if you're honest, you're not entirely sure the swaps you made were the right ones. Or whether the products you chose are actually any better than what you replaced.

03/01/2026

Do you assume that if it’s on the shelf, it must be safe?
That someone, somewhere, thoroughly vetted it?

I used to think that too.

Then 34 years ago I read The Nontoxic Baby — and realized something unsettling:

Toxic chemicals were legally allowed in everyday products.
Even baby products. and personal care.

And unlike pharmaceuticals, cosmetics aren’t pre-approved before they go to market.

There have been small regulatory updates since then.
But not the kind of structural overhaul most people assume exists.

As a green living educator and organic farmer, I’ve always believed that what we put in and on our bodies matters.

That includes food — and it includes what’s absorbed through the skin.

In this week’s episode of the Green Living Now podcast, Phyllis Marlene Benstein and I talk about:

• Fragrance sensitivity
• Hidden ingredients in hair products
• Stress-related hair loss
• And how scalp inflammation may be connected to what you’re using every day

If you’ve ever dealt with thinning hair, irritation, or unexplained sensitivity — this conversation might shift how you look at your bathroom shelf.

Listen here:

Why am I suddenly so sensitive to fragrance?Can personal care products cause inflammation?And what actually contributes to scalp inflammation and hair loss?I...

02/21/2026

Did you know the average American consumes the equivalent of a credit card's worth of plastic every week?

In this week's episode, I sat down with renewable energy expert turned Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, Ramsey Zimmerman, to unpack something that I think about a lot — how do we make smart, non-toxic choices without losing our minds in the process?

We covered everything from what's actually leaching into your food from your cookware (yes, that tomato sauce in your Tupperware), to the glyphosate being sprayed on fields right next to our rivers and lakes, to my honest experience driving an EV from Vermont to New York that turned a 5-hour trip into 8 hours.

The truth is, it's impossible to avoid every toxic exposure.
But there's a difference between knowing that and actually feeling settled in your decisions.

If you've ever stood in a store aisle with your phone out cross-referencing three different databases... this one's for you.

https://youtu.be/Is-Zhze6cJc?si=GTGhNmNS8pLp18td

02/10/2026

I’ve always admired disaster response workers.
Showing up in the worst moments, when everything is broken.

But this week’s podcast conversation took that admiration somewhere else entirely.

Julie was sent to Haiti after the horrific earthquake.

She was handing out water filtration kits when a woman told her she didn’t need that — she needed something else.

What Julie did next wasn’t obvious.

It certainly wasn’t easy.

And it definitely wasn’t expected.

But it changed lives- including her own.

If you care about green living, ethical choices, and what real sustainability actually looks like — this conversation will stay with you.

I've always had tremendous admiration for disaster response people. But this week's podcast guest, Julie Colombino Billingham, took disaster response to a wh...

02/07/2026

I’ve always admired disaster response workers.

Showing up in the worst moments, when everything is broken.

But this week’s podcast conversation took that admiration somewhere else entirely.

Julie was sent to Haiti after the earthquake.

She was handing out water filtration kits when a woman told her she didn’t need that — she needed something else.

What Julie did next wasn’t obvious.

It certainly wasn’t easy.

And it definitely wasn’t expected.

If you care about green living, ethical choices, and what real sustainability actually looks like — this conversation will stay with you.

https://youtu.be/E87G7momo6I?si=81Ns97SBnfabWGad

01/31/2026

This was one of my favorite podcast discussions!

Why?

Because Chris Parker (Indigenous mushroom farmer and forest educator) and I started out talking about wild harvesting mushrooms and then we got into topics like: what if taking only what you need from nature — and putting back the same amount — still isn’t enough?

And, what is a right versus a responsibility when it comes to growing and wild harvesting food. The answer to this question impacts other areas of our lives too. He gave a couple of really interesting stories where he was confronted with this question.
But this conversation goes beyond mushrooms and farming.

It’s also about learning discernment — understanding when we’re just following labels or trends, and when we’re actually making choices that help life grow stronger and more abundant.

It really got me thinking about everyday decisions in a different way.

What if taking only what you need from nature — and putting back the same amount — still isn’t enough?In this episode, I talk with Indigenous mushroom farmer...

01/04/2026

Many women reach midlife exhausted —not because they failed to care for themselves, but because they were conditioned to care for everyone else first.

Years of chronic stress, emotional labor, disrupted sleep, and inconsistent nourishment eventually take a toll — especially on hormones and the nervous system.
And when women finally look for answers, they’re often met with a medical model built around the male body — linear, hormone-stable, and poorly equipped to understand cyclical, seasonal biology.

In this week’s Green Living Now conversation, I speak with Dr. Chloe Weber — a doctor of Chinese medicine, herbalist, and single mother — whose understanding of health was shaped by lived necessity.

Her son lives with a rare, complex neurological disorder. When conventional approaches failed to improve his quality of life, she stopped chasing fixes and began working with the body as an interconnected system — nervous system regulation, daily rhythms, nourishment, and plant-based support.

That same whole-systems lens now informs her work with women — particularly around hormones, chronic stress, and midlife transitions.

We also explore the growing interest — and increasing regulation — around plant-based tools like full-spectrum h**p. Not as prescriptions or promises, but as part of a broader conversation about why certain approaches that support real quality of life don’t fit neatly into existing systems.

This isn’t about rejecting science or chasing cures.
It’s about discernment — and learning to trust the body enough to dig deeper.

https://youtu.be/riqkYO5NVHE?si=K6TSJJEmlRZbhhju

12/05/2025

We’ve always believed the farm and the land are the best classrooms — and this week reminded me just how much we still have to learn from nature.

Some of you may know that we grew sh*take mushrooms at one time here at the farm. We also use them often in our cooking and have taken a variety of medicinal mushroom supplements over the years.

But recently I took a deep dive into the medicinal side of mushrooms… and wow.

Even after years of growing and using them, I learned so much I didn’t know.

There’s a whole world happening beneath those caps and stems:

- how different parts of the mushroom affect the body
- why the way mushrooms are extracted makes such a difference
- which varieties support mood, sleep, focus, menopause, and inflammation
- and how humans have used mushrooms as food and medicine for centuries

If you’re curious about the healing side of mushrooms — or just love learning more about how nature supports us — we just posted a new Green Living Now podcast episode that explores all of this in a really fascinating way.

Listen here: https://youtu.be/HFQ-F7Assk8?si=eJMvpwhD8lu4TTfk

Do you eat and/or use mushrooms? Love to hear your experiences.

What happens when someone spends more than 20 years searching for answers that conventional medicine can’t seem to provide… and then discovers a natural solu...

11/21/2025

Before you do your big Thanksgiving food shopping this week, I wanted to share something I think will really help.

On my latest Green Living Now podcast episode, I interviewed a registered dietitian who has spent over 20 years inside the food industry — and she shared several must-know insights about reading labels, spotting additives, and understanding what’s really in some of the foods we all buy this time of year.

For those of us who care about local farms, real food, and knowing what we’re feeding our families, this conversation is especially timely.

If you want a clearer picture of what’s actually in many everyday grocery items before you fill your cart, here’s the episode:

Watch/Listen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQtzLMRm2tI

The farm is resting until June, but I’ll still be here sharing information to help you navigate food labels, real ingredients, and cleaner choices through the winter months.

P.S. My guest also arranged a full year of a food-label scanning app (normally paid) free for my listeners — it can scan barcodes and even photos of your meals to help you avoid unnecessary additives. Details are inside the episode.

Green Living Now — home of The Elegant RebellionUltra-processed foods are everywhere… but most people have no idea what’s really hiding in them.In this episo...