September 14th–18th | FREE TO JOIN
Healthy Got Complicated. In Five Days, We're Taking It Back.
Five live sessions on growing food, raising chickens, and cooking from scratch, taught by someone with an actual agriculture degree and five kids to feed.
No guilt. No overwhelm. No twelve-step morning routine.
You'll walk out Friday with a written 30-day plan, the one thing you're starting first, and a date it starts.
Nurses coming off twelve-hour shifts. Moms with a toddler on one hip. Women in their sixties who finally have the time and are done waiting for the right moment. 3,000+ women have gone through this challenge with me.
FEATURED IN...
You're Not Imagining It.
You've watched the documentaries. You've seen the viral posts on Facebook and Instagram. You've noticed the laws changing and the studies coming out and the headlines that flatly contradict each other every other week.
Microplastics are in everything now, apparently. People your age are getting diagnoses that people your age didn't used to get. Somebody told you your clothes are plastic too, and you looked at the tag, and they were right. Somebody else said seed oils are the whole problem. Somebody else said that's nonsense. And not to mention the long list of preservatives, food dyes, pesticides, hormones and God-knows-what-else...
And underneath all of it is a quieter question you probably haven't said out loud:
How much of this am I actually supposed to be doing something about?
Do I need to make everything from scratch now?
Do I need a garden that could really feed us, not just a few tomatoes?Bullet List 4
If the world keeps changing this fast, is knowing how to feed my own family going to matter more than it does right now?
Here's the truth. You cannot sort all of that out. Nobody can. Not you, not me, not the woman with the perfect pantry on Instagram. That isn't a personal failure. That's the design.
But you can pick one thing and do it for thirty days.
That's the whole idea behind this week.
Is this for me?
Most likely, YES!
(Especially if at least one of these sounds like you…)
You want to grow some of your own food, even if it’s just a few raised beds or pots on a patio, so you know what’s really going on your family’s table.
You’re dreaming about keeping a few backyard chickens for fresh eggs (or maybe someday goats, bees, or other small livestock)
You’d love to cook and bake with real, wholesome ingredients instead of relying on ultra-processed convenience foods.
You’re tired of feeling confused and overwhelmed by YouTube videos, blogs, and conflicting advice; you just want a clear, simple way to begin.
You care deeply about your family’s health and resilience and want to make meaningful changes without uprooting your entire life.
You crave a community of like-minded women who value tradition, simplicity, and health, but don’t expect perfection.
This probably is not for you if…
You’re determined to go completely off-grid or pursue a hardcore survivalist/prepper lifestyle.
You’re only interested in stockpiling food for emergencies, not building a sustainable, joyful way of living.
You want a magic shortcut that requires no time or effort to change how you eat, live, and feed your family.
If you dream of evenings spent in the garden, being able to collect fresh eggs or bake fresh bread, go ahead and sign up now!
"I really wanted to create a lifestyle that was better for my kids. For me, that meant more homegrown food and eliminating a lot of the processed junk from their diet. My mom cooked everything from a box, much less cooked with fresh ingredients. I didn't have the tools or knowledge and that's where the Academy and learning from Shelby has been a game changer for us."
–Laura Brown
Hi, I'm Shelby!
I have a master's degree in agriculture and a bachelor's in animal and dairy science. I taught high school and college agriculture for six and a half years. I grew up on a small farm in West Tennessee, and I've spent my whole adult life around food production, from the research side to the dirt side.
None of that stopped me from having a heart attack and a stroke at 30.
There was no warning. By every measure I looked healthy. The recovery sent me into the research, and then into my own kitchen and my own garden, trying to figure out what I'd actually been feeding my family.
What I found is that you don't need a farm. You don't need to make everything from scratch. You don't need to move off grid. You need a handful of the right changes, done consistently, in the minutes you already have.
I homeschool five kids in North Texas. I teach this differently than most people do, and this week you'll see exactly what I mean.
The Details
WHEN
The Seeking Simplicity Challenge is happening Monday September 14 through Friday September 18, live at 11:00 a.m. Central. About 90 minutes a day. Same time every day so you can plan around it.
12:00 PM Eastern | 10:00 AM Mountain | 9:00 AM Pacific
THE SESSIONS
Five live lessons, about 90 minutes each. These are working sessions, so you'll have your Planner open and you'll be filling it in with me as we go, not watching me talk.
I'll ask you for one thing: 90 minutes with your phone face down. That's the only reason this works.
Replays go up during challenge week and come down Sunday, September 20 at midnight.
THE SIMPLICITY PLANNER
Everyone who registers for the challenge gets the planner for free. It includes five daily worksheets, the pantry audit pages, the four-week plan you'll build on Friday, the troubleshooting cards, and a one-page summary made to go on the fridge. Print it before the challenge starts on Monday.
THE COMMUNITY
A private Facebook group, just for this week. This is where the week gets fun.
We play games, we give away prizes, and the conversations keep going long after we log off the call.
You'll post your pantry audit and watch forty other women post theirs, which turns out to be the exact moment most people stop feeling behind. It's also where you can finally ask the thing you've been too embarrassed to ask. Somebody in there has already done it, already failed at it, and will tell you what they'd do differently.
THE UPGRADE
After you register, you’ll have the chance to upgrade to the VIP Pass, giving you:
Lifetime access to all challenge sessions
Guides, printables, workshops and more to make it easier to grow a garden, cook with real ingredients and even raise chickens or bake fresh sourdough
A slower pace so you can soak it all in on your schedule
PRIZES AND CHALLENGE FUN
We'll be playing BINGO all week to make the week even more fun. Show up, do the homework, fill out your card, earn entries into Friday's drawing.
Past prizes have included homestead tools, gift cards, and fun surprises, and the prizes this time are just as exciting. We can’t wait to celebrate your participation and reward you for joining in on the fun!
"I wish I had discovered Shelby DeVore when I started gardening and farming last year. The events that she hosts are both informative and inspiring! In her classes, she does a great job of giving you the nuts and bolts for the basics and explains complex topics simply and clearly. I was armed with much better information to get started this year and I can finally stop Googling the things that are not going quite right."
–Danette Cathcart
Five Days. Five Lessons. One Plan You'll Actually Finish.
The most meaningful step you’ll take for you and your family this year.
The SIMPLE Method
DAY 1
MONDAY | SEE THE TRUTH
We start with why this matters. You'll find out which of the companies selling you ultra-processed food also own the companies selling you the medication for what that food does. You'll learn to spot ultra-processed food in about four seconds. And you'll find out why the tomato you bought at the store sat in a warehouse with the ripening gas pumped out of it, sometimes for months. Then you'll use the Healthy Years Calculator to see how many healthy, active years small changes could add to your life. That number is usually the moment people decide they're actually doing this.
DAY 2
TUESDAY | IDENTIFY YOUR ONE THING
Most people quit because they try to do everything. On Day 2, you pick one thing. We'll walk through exactly what's possible in 10, 20, or 30 minutes a day across all three paths, garden, chickens, and scratch kitchen, then score your options against your real schedule. You'll leave with one clear starting point and a time on the calendar to actually do it.
DAY 3
WEDNESDAY | MEASURE WHERE YOU ARE
Fair warning, this one stings a little. You'll pull five packaged items out of your own pantry and score them against five red flags, live, with me. Then we score your last seven dinners. This isn't about shame. It's about finally knowing where you're starting from, the same way you'd step on a scale before trying to lose weight. Most women say this is the day everything changed.
DAY 4
THURSDAY | PICK YOUR PEOPLE
There's a price you've been paying without noticing, and I call it the internet tax. It shows up as hours lost to scrolling, advice that contradicts itself, one flop that wrecks your confidence, and food safety advice that is flat-out dangerous. My mother-in-law once spent two weeks and hundreds of dollars medicating perfectly healthy chickens because of a Facebook thread. Today you'll learn to tell a trustworthy source from a harmful one in about ten seconds.
DAY 5
FRIDAY | LAY OUT YOUR 30 DAYS
We build the plan. The next 30 days with a single outcome and a single small action that will make a massive difference. You'll write it during the session, not after. We'll also plan for the days it goes sideways, because it will, and that's exactly when most people quit. You'll leave with a one-page plan that goes on your fridge.
And Then There's E.
ONCE THE CHALLENGE ENDS | EXECUTE
That one isn't a class. That's the month you actually do it, starting the Monday after we finish.
It's the only part of this that has ever mattered. You can watch every session, fill out every page, and still be standing in the same kitchen two months later. So we're not going to pretend Friday is the finish line. Friday is the day you walk out with the plan and the date it starts.
Thirty days. Four steps. One thing.
It started with a tomato that tasted like nothing.
Not bad. Not rotten. Just… nothing.
I remember standing in my kitchen, slicing into a perfect-looking “organic” tomato I’d just bought from Whole Foods. The skin was smooth. The color was flawless. The label said fresh.
It was supposed to be the good kind. The expensive kind.
But when I took a bite, there was no flavor. Just a pale, watery, gritty, flavorless disappointment.
It hit me harder than I expected. Because it wasn’t just about a tomato.
I have a master's degree in agriculture and I still stood there in my kitchen feeling stupid about a tomato.
So I went looking for why. Produce in this country travels an average of 1,500 miles to reach you and loses close to half its nutritional value on the way. But that isn't even the part that got me. Tomatoes are picked green, then held in warehouses with the ripening gas scrubbed out of the air, sometimes for months, so they sit in suspended animation while the nutrients quietly break down. Then they're gassed back to red on the trip to your store.
That thing was red because of chemistry. Not because it was ripe and full of nutrients. In fact, most tomatoes lack over half of the nutrients they would naturally have.
No wonder the supplement industry is the size it is.
Here's what I want you to hear, though. I'm not telling you this so you'll feel doomed at the grocery store. I'm telling you because a tomato you grow in a five-gallon bucket on a patio beats a store bought one on every measure that matters, and it only takes about ten minutes a week.
We don't have to choose between the old ways and the modern world. We just have to take back the handful of things that were worth keeping.
Because once you taste a real tomato again, there’s no going back.
You Don't Need a Farm, Free Time, or Any Experience. You Need a Plan Short Enough to Finish.
Creating a healthier, more intentional lifestyle can feel overwhelming, especially when you’re already stretched thin and not sure what to do first. But deep down, you know there has to be a better way to feed your family and care for the people you love.
What if you could take back control...without turning your life upside down?
By the end of the Seeking Simplicity Challenge you'll have...
One starting point you've actually chosen. A plan for a garden, chickens, or scratch kitchen. Not all three. One thing, picked on purpose, matched to the minutes you really have.
An honest picture of what's feeding your family right now (and what it's doing to your health). We audit your pantry and your last seven dinners together, live. It isn't comfortable, but it's the part you don't want to miss.
A written 30-day plan, broken into four super simple steps that take just minutes. Each week has one outcome and one small action. You'll fill it out on the call with me, not after.
The four lies you've been sold, taken apart one at a time. That it takes too much time. That you have to be an expert. That you need land. That because you tried once and it didn't work, you're not the type. None of those started with you, and every one of them makes somebody money. We'll show you who, and replace each one with something you can do tonight.
A date to actually start. Not someday, years from now, when the kids move out or when you retire or when your Saturdays aren't filled with soccer games and running errands.
This isn’t about doing it all at once. It’s about learning one doable skill at a time so that your life becomes more grounded, more nourishing, and more yours.
And that’s exactly what the Seeking Simplicity Challenge is here to help you do.
Imagine your life two months from now.
It's a normal Tuesday. Nothing dramatic has happened.
You're not off grid. You didn't quit your job, buy a farm, or start making your own soap.
But there's a sourdough loaf on the counter that you made, and it's the fourth one, so you're not nervous about it anymore.
You know what's in it. You know what's in most of what your family ate this week, actually, because you can read a label in about four seconds now, and there are three things you stopped buying in September and never went back to.
There's something growing that you planted. Maybe it's a pot of lettuce by the back door. Maybe it turned into more than that. Either way you walk past it every day and it's yours.
And when something goes wrong, and it will, you know exactly who to ask. You're not typing it into Google at eleven at night and getting five contradictory answers from strangers.
You're finally living the simpler, healthier life you've been dreaming of and it's all because you gave yourself permission to attend the Seeking Simplicity Challenge.
"I’m a seasoned homesteader with 40+ years of experience. I was interested in this event to find ideas for choosing better what I really need to be doing for my husband and I on the farm. I was able to get some really good information from the this and walked away with a much better plan for my next steps. Thank you for offering this. It was very enjoyable and informative. I would have loved to have this when I started my homestead decades ago."
–Donna Barrett
Why This Works When YouTube Doesn't...
We’re not here to overwhelm you, we’re here to cut you loose.
You've wanted this for years. This isn't a new idea you're considering. It's an old want you keep setting back down for when you 'have more time'. Every January. Every spring. Every time you stand in a grocery aisle and think there has to be a better way to do this.
And every time, something stops you.
Sometimes it's the calendar. Sometimes it's the voice that says you don't know enough yet. Sometimes it's the tomato plant that died two summers ago, or the loaf that came out like a brick, and the quiet thing you decided about yourself afterward.
It was never that you didn't have the information. Somewhere in your search history is everything you'd need to grow a tomato, bake a loaf, or keep six hens alive. You've read it. Some of it twice. And you're still standing in the same kitchen.
What you've never had is somebody going after the things in your way, one at a time, and taking them apart until there's nothing left holding the door shut.
That's what this week is.
You've been ready for a long time. This is the week nothing gets to stop you.
Here's what past attendees have to say...
Would you believe the “fresh” vegetables at the store could be months, or even a year old?
I taught agriculture for six and a half years, at the high school and the college level. Animal science, plant science, soil science, wildlife biology- you name it, I probably taught it. Before that I spent two years at a college of veterinary medicine and a year and a half in a meat science research lab. I've written for Tractor Supply, Hoover's Hatchery, and Park Seed, and I've been featured in USA Today, Family Handyman, Realtor.com, and Bob Vila.
I'm telling you that so you know where this is coming from. I'm not hopping on a trend, there's not a supplement I'm about to sell you, and I'm not just telling you something I read on Instagram last week. I'm a multi-generational farmer and gardener that's been there and done that.
Produce loses nutritional value from the moment it's picked, and by the time an out-of-season vegetable reaches your store it can be missing up to 80% of the nutritional value that it would have if you grew it in your backyard. That's not a conspiracy. It's just logistics, and nobody in that chain is being paid to care about the nutrient content when it lands on your counter.
You are the only person in that whole system whose actual job is your family's health.
And here's the part nobody is saying out loud...
Convenience culture didn't just sell us food. It took the skills.
Your great-grandmother could feed a family of seven out of a garden and a pantry, and she didn't think of it as a skill any more than you think of driving as a skill. It was just normal life. Two generations later most of us can't do any of it, and we're fully dependent on a system that has never once had our health as its job.
Meanwhile diabetes, heart disease, thyroid and hormone problems, fertility issues, cancer and autoimmune conditions keep climbing, in people who get younger every year. That isn't bad luck. It's tied to how we eat and how we live, and it's the one part of this you actually have a say in.
Fixing this doesn't require a green thumb, a culinary degree, or an acre of land.
There's a quiet movement of women taking this back right now. Not by moving off grid or making their own soap. By growing a little, cooking a little, and learning the things nobody bothered to teach them.
That's exactly what the Seeking Simplicity Challenge is for. The garden that got away from you this summer. The bread you meant to learn. The chickens you've been talking about for two years.
None of that requires a different life. It requires ten minutes and somebody putting the steps in order for you.
© 2026 Garden. Farm. Thrive.