Organic Farmer, Dave Hartshorn

It started with a handful of pumpkin seeds tossed into a compost pile.

Dave didn't plan it that way. But those seeds sprouted into a bumper crop, helped finance his college education, and set him on a path he's never left. What began as a happy accident became a life's philosophy: pay attention to what the land is telling you, put back what you take out, and trust the process.

Dave grew up on his family's dairy farm in the Mad River Valley, part of a five-generation line of stewards of this land and its maple traditions. But it was that compost pile that lit the spark — and more than thirty years ago, he became the first farmer in the Mad River Valley to be certified organic. Not because it was trendy. Because it made sense.

His regenerative approach set a new standard for soil health and sustainability in the region, and it hasn't wavered since. For more than 25 years, Dave was the founding farmer at the Waitsfield Farmers' Market. Today he sells seven days a week from the farm stand and to a small handful of local stores. He also co-founded Green Mountain Harvest Hydroponic, a Vermont year-round greenhouse supplying pesticide-free lettuce, basil, and watercress.

His work has earned recognition that reflects what anyone who's tasted his produce already knows:

• 2009 Conservation Farm of the Year, Winooski Natural Resources Conservation District

• Best Produce, American Institute of Wine & Food

• Best in Show, Maple Syrup, Vermont Farm Show

These days, Dave's expertise extends beyond the fields and sugarhouse.

Together with Amy, he's the hands-on instructor for Amy’s beginner organic gardening course — bringing the same grounded, practical knowledge he's developed over decades directly to people who are ready to grow their own clean food for the first time. If you want to learn how to grow, there are few better teachers than someone who's been doing it this well, for this long, on this land. He's also featured extensively in the advanced course, How to Easily Grow Organic Food Almost Anywhere: Master Organic Gardening in Soil, Containers, or Hydroponics, part of the Green Living Now curriculum.

Whether you're putting your first seeds in the ground or ready to grow year-round in any space you have, Dave is the person walking you through it. If you want to learn how to grow, there are few better teachers than someone who's been doing it this well, for this long, on this land.

Whether he's in the greenhouse at dawn, tapping maples in late winter, or showing a first-time gardener how to read the soil, Dave brings quiet expertise and genuine generosity to everything he does. Hartshorn Farm is what it is because of the standards he's held — and kept — for over thirty years.

Who’s Amy (Todisco) Hartshorn?
From the Upper East Side of NYC to Hartshorn Organic Farm

Amy (Todisco) Hartshorn

Amy is the educational heartbeat of Hartshorn Farm — a certified organic farmer, green living educator, clean-food advocate, and one of the earliest voices in the country to publicly challenge the toxic products hiding in plain sight in American homes.

Her journey began long before Vermont.
At sixteen, she was stocking shelves at a health food store.

In the early '90s, she became one of the first women publicly challenging toxic household products — writing bold letters to the editor, launching a town-wide Earth Day event, and co-founding the Marblehead Cancer Prevention Project after her community documented cancer rates running above state averages.
The "better living through chemicals" crowd pushed back hard.
She kept going anyway.

That grassroots fire caught attention. The founder of Seventh Generation brought her in as the founding Executive Director of the Household Toxins Institute — one of the first organizations dedicated to actually testing household products for toxins. She went on to serve as technical editor of Green Living for Dummies, ensuring real families got real science instead of industry spin dressed up in green packaging. Her work has been featured on HGTV, Vermont Public Radio and Television, WCAX, and Rachel Ray Everyday Magazine. Oprah's team called too — she was going to come to Vermont to interview Amy about the way she lives.

That same instinct — see the problem, build the solution, bring others along — has defined everything Amy has built since. She has founded and led community organizations, created regional coalitions connecting holistic health practitioners, and coached entrepreneurs for more than two decades. It has never been enough to work only at the individual level when something larger was possible.

At the farm, that philosophy comes to life in the most literal way.
Amy and her husband, Dave, have been welcoming guests to Hartshorn Organic Farm for over (35 years for Dave) sixteen years — through farm tours, workshops, and educational events that help visitors understand not just how food is grown, but how the choices made in kitchens and homes shape health and the planet. The greenhouse, fields, and sugarhouse are working classrooms. Clean food and conscious living stop being concepts here — they become lunch and dinner.

Amy also hosts Green Living Now, a podcast and YouTube channel featuring expert guests, real transformation stories, and practical guidance rooted in decades of hands-on research. She leads women's restorative retreats that have produced results her participants describe as life-changing — including a veteran who got sober during a weekend retreat and said it surpassed two months of inpatient treatment at a VA hospital. She is a confirmed TEDx speaker for Fall 2026.

Her flagship program, Your Nontoxic Kitchen, Reimagined, distills thirty-plus years of research and real-life testing into a 5-day reset — built around a decision-making framework that changes not just what women buy, but how they think.

Whether she's guiding a farm tour, teaching online, or speaking on a stage, Amy brings warmth, humor, and hard-earned wisdom to everything she does. Her mission has never changed: help people live healthier, more empowered, more connected lives — one grounded, real-world step at a time.

"What if the products in your home were quietly undermining your health? My journey began with that unsettling question — and now, I help people find answers that transform their lives." — Amy (Todisco) Hartshorn