Turn Here Sweet Corn: Organic Farming Works ebook

by Atina Diffley

Turn Here Sweet Corn is an unexpected page-turner This book is wonderful on so many levels: the swift moving and dramatic story of Atina and Martin Diffley, the farmers of Gardens of Eagan, as they confront wild weather.

Turn Here Sweet Corn is an unexpected page-turner. Diffley reveals the evident difficulties of small-scale organic farming but is inspirational about its value to people and the planet. This book is wonderful on so many levels: the swift moving and dramatic story of Atina and Martin Diffley, the farmers of Gardens of Eagan, as they confront wild weather, development pressure, and pipelines. The transformation of Tina into Atina, from confused teenager to strong, passionate, and committed leader in organic agriculture.

Your book, Turn Here Sweet Corn, has been truly inspirational to m. Turn Here Sweet Corn is an unexpected page-turner.

Your book, Turn Here Sweet Corn, has been truly inspirational to me. By reading your book I have found a way to turn my graduate studies around from a place that I had lost heart to a consolidation and bridge into a new professional field. Marion Nestle, author of What to Eat.

Turn Here Sweet Corn book. Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Start by marking Turn Here Sweet Corn: Organic Farming Works as Want to Read: Want to Read savin. ant to Read.

Atina Diffley is an organic farmer, author, public speaker and consultant

Atina Diffley is an organic farmer, author, public speaker and consultant. From 1973 to 2008, Atina and her husband Martin owned and operated Gardens of Eagan, one of the first certified organic produce farms in the Midwest. The award-winning video documentary Turn Here Sweet Corn, filmed when the 5th generation Diffley family farm was lost to development, focuses on the loss of greenbelt farmlands to suburbia

Turn Here Sweet Corn is a memoir by Atina Diffley.

Turn Here Sweet Corn is a memoir by Atina Diffley. Visit ww. tinadiffley. Atina Diffley is an organic farmer, educator, activist, and author of the 2013 Minnesota Book Award winner, Turn Here Sweet Corn: Organic Farming Works–a memoir based on Atina’s life running the Gardens of Eagan organic vegetable farm. Atina’s advocacy has addressed the pressures of suburban development, biodiversity, and habitat loss.

Turn Here Sweet Corn. Organic Farming Works. Author: Atina Diffley. A master class in organic farming, a lesson in entrepreneurship, a love story, and a legal thriller. In telling her story of working the land, Atina Diffley reminds us that we live in relationships-with the earth, plants and animals, families and communities.

Atina Diffley is an organic vegetable farmer who now educates consumers, farmers, and policymakers about organic farming through the consulting business Organic Farming Works LLC, owned by her and her husband, Martin. From 1973 through 2007, the Diffleys owned and operated Gardens of Eagan, one of the first certified organic produce farms in the Midwest. To contact Atina or Martin Diffley, visit ww. rganicfarmingworks. TRANSCRIPTION: Hello I’m Caryn Hartglass and you’re listening to It’s All About Food.

Written by Atina Diffley, Audiobook narrated by Atina Diffley. Turn Here Sweet Corn: Organic Farming Works. Narrated by: Atina Diffley.

When the hail starts to fall, Atina Diffley doesn’t compare it to golf balls. She’s a farmer. It’s “as big as a B-size potato.” As her bombarded land turns white, she and her husband Martin huddle under a blanket and reminisce: the one-hundred-mile-per-hour winds; the eleven-inch rainfall (“that broccoli turned out gorgeous”); the hail disaster of 1977. The romance of farming washed away a long time ago, but the love? Never. In telling her story of working the land, coaxing good food from the fertile soil, Atina Diffley reminds us of an ultimate truth: we live in relationships—with the earth, plants and animals, families and communities.

A memoir of making these essential relationships work in the face of challenges as natural as weather and as unnatural as corporate politics, her book is a firsthand history of getting in at the “ground level” of organic farming. One of the first certified organic produce farms in the Midwest, the Diffleys’ Gardens of Eagan helped to usher in a new kind of green revolution in the heart of America’s farmland, supplying their roadside stand and a growing number of local food co-ops. This is a story of a world transformed—and reclaimed—one square acre at a time.

And yet, after surviving punishing storms and the devastating loss of fifth-generation Diffley family land to suburban development, the Diffleys faced the ultimate challenge: the threat of eminent domain for a crude oil pipeline proposed by one of the largest privately owned companies in the world, notorious polluters Koch Industries. As Atina Diffley tells her David-versus-Goliath tale, she gives readers everything from expert instruction in organic farming to an entrepreneur’s manual on how to grow a business to a legal thriller about battling corporate arrogance to a love story about a single mother falling for a good, big-hearted man.

Otiel

Atina Diffley is an organic farmer, mother, and warrior. This rapidly unfolding memoir gracefully moves through the author's entire career span, as well as covering a good bit of family history and some of her deepest influences. The final chapters describe a battle between the small family farm and the oil corporation. Ms. Diffley readily captures the rhythmic poetry innate in the life of a small scale, family-oriented organic truck farmer. She also includes a lot of philosophical detail about organic/permaculture farming itself, which explains some of the techniques she and her husband used in vegetable production. Really interesting and well articulated explanations.

In the interest of keeping the story to a manageable length, some personal details are understandably missing. There is a beautiful arc through the book where she talks about the evolution of her relationship with her daughter. There were certainly times I had questions about how she mastered certain practical skills, how she came to certain conclusions as a woman and as a parent, how she saw herself, how she related to her staff, how she balanced family and work... While these things are referenced briefly in the book, they are not, understandably, the focus. Personally, I would have loved a bit more detail on how these details were managed, to balance the poetic passages and the tactical information about how they defended their farm from various development projects. On some level with this book and with Kristin Kimball's A Dirty Life, I found it lighter than I'd like on the insights and descriptions of the emotional struggles, awkward mistakes and learning curves that are a part of mastering the skills of farming (and parenting) -- insights that make the author's story more accessible and relatable.

I'm not quibbling over the value of this book. Ms. Diffley is definitely a very powerful, decisive and inspiring warrior and she has broken new legislative ground with her sheer passion, will and determination, which is evident in her character from the very beginning of her story. I'm so grateful she has written this book to inspire us to follow this movement in protecting organic farms. Perhaps the more mundane aspects of her inner life and growth as a farmer seemed less important in the editing process. Well worth reading.

EROROHALO

I LOVE this book so much that I bought another for myself after reading the beginning of the one that I bought for a gift for my daughter.

It is the life memoir of the author, intertwined with the story of her family's organic farm in Dakota County, MN (just miles from my home vegetable gardener daughter & her family) and all of the challenges that they faced through 30 some years of organic farming.

I loved reading Atina's life story and about her relationships in life and with the land. I also learned many things about organic farming and how things grow best. I am a long time unofficial organic home produce gardener but I found it helpful in many ways.

I will read this (Winner of the 2013 Minnesota Book Award) book for Memoir again and high-lite many pages for gardening reference. I hope to meet Atina one day when I'm visiting Minnesota to see my daughter & her family.

Envias

Based on the true story of raising a family while running an organic farm, Atina Diffley has written one of the defining books of our time about food, family, culture and power. The Amazon description of the book is pretty good, so I will not repeat it here.

I am a nature teacher with Green Spiral Tours in Saint Louis, and have read many, many books on nature and the environment; this is one of the very best books in the field and points the way forward, towards cultivating the 'culture' in agriculture. What's most remarkable is that it is based on a true story; thus Atina is one of the Sheros of our time.

I believe "Turn Here, Sweet Corn" to be a modern classic, and one that belongs on the shelves of every professor teaching Education for Sustainability, on the reading lists of High Schools who want to become relevant, and indeed, on the kindles of young families who care about food and what they are feeding their children. Beyond that, it's a heartwarming and enjoyable read, where the "little guy" gets to win for a change. As the sub-title says, "Organic Farming Works!"

Stanober

This book was used for a community read in preparing our community to help support a food coop. I was pleased that the writing skill made all the information and story-telling so appealing. It's down to earth, but very full of knowledge and wisdom...much from experience in the dirt, but also getting educated in more formal ways. Many human qualities were displayed as life got lived becoming organic farmers. I'll probably read it next spring to get my green juices flowing for another growing season.

Mpapa

I could not get into this book. I read enough of it to know I didn't like the writing style, so I am basing my review on the first couple of chapters. I was still farming (certified organic farm) full time when I bought it. I don't find farming romantic. I just didn't dig it, very "prosey." Others may love it, but me, not so much.

Biaemi

This book is so amazingly well written, I expect it to become a national best-seller. The stories themselves are magical, and then Atina takes them and weaves a magically realistic tapestry that between plain speak and practical farming advice combine to make one of the best books I have read in years. It inspired me to write my first Amazon review, ever.

Admittedly, I'm an aspiring farmer, but I have also read a good number of farming memoirs, and this one takes the cake. If you want to be inspired, read this book. If you want to follow the story of what it takes to become/remember how to be a farmer, and remain a farmer, read this book. If you want to better understand the current climate of farming in the U.S., read this book. If you want some examples on how to keep your children connected to Nature, read this book. If you want to read some incredible examples of how truth can be stranger than science-fiction, read Turn Here Sweet Corn: Organic Farming Works.

If you live in an urban or rural area, have farming in your family, or eat food, you need to read this book. It's an important one, and it will surprise you.