Autism, ADHD and Other Developmental ImpactsĪtina Diffley is an organic farmer, public speaker 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.Dicamba and 2,4-D Herbicides: Use, Challenges, and Risk.It's an intimate look into this woman's life. I was led to believe this book would help me better understand what organic farming is all about. What was most disappointing about Atina Diffley’s story? All of this might be fine if that's what you are looking for, but this is just a personal diary about this woman's life without much practical education.

I'm five chapters in and all the author's done so far is talk about her life, history, women's rights, and her failing marriage. 'She gives readers everything from expert instruction in organic farming to an entrepreneur's manual on how to grow a business,' is what it says in the description. What disappointed you about Turn Here Sweet Corn: Organic Farming Works? Not what you might expect from the description This is a story of a world transformed - and reclaimed - one square acre at a time.Īs 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. 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.

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.Ī 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. The romance of farming washed away a long time ago. 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. When the hail starts to fall, Atina Diffley doesn't compare it to golf balls. A Master Class in Organic Farming, a Lesson in Entrepreneurship, a Love Story, and a Legal Thriller.

Turn Here Sweet Corn by Atina Diffley