At the Garden's Gate

Author of At The Garden's Gate, Master Gardener, Herbalist, Speaker

[Epic Gardening @epicgardening]

GARLIC HARVEST - Garlic is ready about six months after planting, when green leaves turn crispy brown from the bottom up.

[Regeneration International @regeneration_in]

https://t.co/gMVs3ZxvMM

🍅 This week, Organic Bytes is pulling back the curtain on some things that do not get nearly enough attention. Herbicides are showing up in drinking water and are now being linked to cancer, killing more young Americans under 50 than any other. Big Tech is moving into the global farm data supply and using it against the very farmers who feed us. And Congress just took a hatchet to the programs helping farmers get off chemical agriculture, while Big Ag's subsidies are still going to the industrial farms.

But this week also has some wins worth celebrating. An Indigenous community in the Black Hills prayed, organized, and forced a mining company to pack up and leave. Science keeps catching up to the common sense we all know, that eggs, watermelon, a good night's sleep, and a patch of green in your neighborhood do more for your health than anything a lab or a pharmaceutical company is selling.

We hope you enjoy this edition of Organic Bytes, the newsletter for people who care about good health, good food, and the future of our planet.

[Navdanya @NavdanyaBija]

Seeds actually have this incredible power of spreading. There is so much beauty in one seed becoming a million seeds. This ability to generate and regenerate and multiply, that is the power of the feminine force of the universe, that’s shakti. @drvandanashiva @NavdanyaBija

[NRDC 🌎🏡 @NRDC]

APPLY NOW: Our sixth annual Climate Storytelling Fellowship with The Black List, @redfordcenter, @caaimpact, and @nbcuniversal is now open! Fellows will receive $20k and creative mentorship to support revision of a script that engages with climate themes in a compelling way: https://t.co/3yT9vc4ass

[GMO/Toxin Free USA @GMOFreeUSA]

Two rounds of testing that took place 3 years apart have found dangerous levels of toxins in many items of clothing sold on the Shein Chinese fast fashion website, the world's most visited fashion website. The most recent testing in 2025 compared levels of toxins detected to EU safety tolerance thresholds.

Greenpeace purchased 56 garments from Shein across eight countries and had them analyzed for hazardous chemicals. The results are alarming:
> 18 of 56 products (32 %) exceeded EU limits; including children's clothing (3 items)
> 7 products (jackets) exceeded PFAS limits by up to 3,300 times.
> 14 products exceeded phthalates limits, six by 100 times or more.
Particularly concerning are persistent, hormone-disrupting substances such as PFAS — used to make jackets water and stain-repellent — and phthalates, used as plasticizers in footwear. Also detected were heavy metals and VOCs.

SHAME ON YOU, SHEIN. Have you bought something from Shein? Time to get rid of it.
https://t.co/HrEjdAHlSB

[NRDC 🌎🏡 @NRDC]

America’s clean energy future is being held back by outdated policies and political interference—not by economics or technology. Americans deserve lower utility bills, good-paying jobs, cleaner air, and communities that prosper from transitioning to clean energy. https://t.co/0LviNJ8RS0

[Joe Rogan Podcast News @joeroganhq]

RFK Jr: "The most important role that a nation has, is protecting its children. And here we were just watching these generations of children be damaged, and nobody was even talking about it."

[NRDC 🌎🏡 @NRDC]

The Trump administration is illegally giving some of the nation’s most polluting industries a free pass to spew toxic pollution. We’re challenging these unlawful actions in court to protect communities and uphold democracy.

[At the Garden's Gate @LadyMeadow17]

See this Instagram post by @gardenflowers688 https://t.co/u6yzMqUe1X

[Kibo @Kibo_care]

Do you know that the commercially made bread and cereals you have for breakfast everyday are full of glyphosate and other pesticides and herbicides, and are a likely cause of your autoimmune diseases from irritable gut and eczema to asthma and thyroid problems?

The root of the issue goes deep into big agrochemical and seed companies (Bayer/Monsanto, Corteva, Syngenta, etc.) that dominate the seed and pesticide/herbicide markets and significantly influence farming practices. Their contractual agreements with farmers mandate the exclusive use of their GMO seeds (engineered to withstand heavy use of chemicals) and unnecessarily excessive use of their herbicides and pesticides. Farmers, facing economic pressures, are forced to adopt these practices.

Our @HHSGov will collaborate with other departments, including @USDA and @EPA , to implement policies that limit pesticide use and support organic farming. The FDA will impose the strictest limits on pesticides and herbicides in food to change agricultural practices.

Americans deserve normal, healthy food, and no one should be consuming pesticides and herbicides from their meals.

[At the Garden's Gate @LadyMeadow17]

Do you remember when you joined X? I do! #MyXAnniversary

[GMO/Toxin Free USA @GMOFreeUSA]

Put a label on Kellogg's Froot Loops. WARNING: CONTAINS TOXIC GMOs, WEEDKILLER & PFAS “FOREVER CHEMICALS”. Demand that Kellogg's remove the GMOs, pesticides, and PFAS: https://t.co/hZXDOVVaMP
We sent Kellogg’s Froot Loops to independent labs to test for GMOs and glyphosate, the so-called “active” ingredient in toxic herbicide concoctions used on the majority of GMO crops. The tests confirmed what Kellogg’s is trying to hide. The corn is 100% GMO corn, containing DNA sequences known to be present in insecticide-producing Bt and Roundup Ready corn. The soy contained DNA sequences known to be present in Roundup Ready GMO soy.
https://t.co/BXfmdfGNTA
If you don’t find that appetizing, you surely won’t savor the thought of eating toxic weedkiller. Froot Loops contained worrying levels of endocrine-disrupting, carcinogenic glyphosate as well. And our most recent lab test on Froot Loops found toxic PFAS “Forever Chemicals” in the cereal.
And they market this to children?? BOYCOTT KELLOGG’S!
This European company should understand exactly why Americans want and deserve the same recipes and ingredients as the food sold in the EU, UK and other more health-conscious countries around the world.

[At the Garden's Gate @LadyMeadow17]

The Gift From Chiron https://t.co/xcLlaBYuGw

[At the Garden's Gate @LadyMeadow17]

New Year’s Resolutions https://t.co/pXM68ZJq9M

[Marianne Williamson @marwilliamson]

In order to win, Harris should talk a whole lot less about Trump and a whole lot more about ways she's going to make life better for the average American.

For people who are skipping meals to pay the rent, who are one paycheck away from living in the street, who are without health insurance, who can't live on just one job, who are worried about climate change, who cannot stand the forever wars, there's not that much to laugh about or to be "joyful"about.

When Trump says "Make America Great Again," while to millions of us that's a total crock, to millions more it's a sign of hope. False hope, yes, but people prefer false hope to no hope at all.

It's not enough to say Trump will turn America into an authoritarian dystopia; she needs to say how she will turn it in the direction of something much much better for everyone.

[At the Garden's Gate @LadyMeadow17]

Quotable – Chuck Palahniuk https://t.co/MuUc215RnM

[Non-GMO Report @nongmoreport]

The Urgent Need for Organic Farming to Save Depleted Soils Due to Unchecked Use of Chemical Fertilizers https://t.co/b8molNLQaK via @countercurrents

[GMWatch @GMWatch]

The cancer risk from #pesticides is comparable in some cases to smoking, new study finds. The strongest association was between non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, leukemia, and bladder cancer. https://t.co/JfHM6fki4r

[Navdanya International @NavdanyaInt]

How “essential” are hazardous substances? https://t.co/qSlKtPvyK8