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Dear Valerie: Cigars and Tobacco Mosaic Virus

On Dec 4, 2012, at 6:02 PM, Valerie . . .  wrote to Atina Diffley:

Hi Atina,

Firstly I LOVE your book!

My husband and a group of his friends get together about once a month and smoke cigars. Last summer one evening it was at our house and they smoked on the back deck which is level with and about 8′ away from my vegetable garden. I did not put it together with the smoking but my tomatoes were a total flop last year. Some people said it was blight. This year when the smoker was at our house it rained so they moved it to my front porch nowhere near my vegetable garden. I had a nice crop this year . . .  actually still have kale growing. Before I become the wicked witch and ban the guys from smoking here do you think it was the tobacco mosaic you speak about on page 310 that messed up my crop last year. It seemed like no matter what I did they just seemed dehydrated. My husband suggested I contact you before I ban the smoker.

A tobacco plant infected with Tobacco Mosaic Virus. Knapp, E. and Lewandowski, D. J. 2001. Tobacco mosaic virus, not just a single component virus anymore. Molecular Plant Pathology 2(3):117–123. Article first published online : 21 DEC 2001, DOI: 10.1046/j.1364-3703.2001.00064.x

Thank you!!

Valerie

On Dec 11, 2012 at 1:02 pm Atina Diffley responded: [Read more…] about Dear Valerie: Cigars and Tobacco Mosaic Virus

Deleted Scene — Turn Here Sweet Corn — Maize’s Cucumber Pick

Chapter: What To Hold Onto

Maize is racing barefoot up the old horse path from Louise’s field. Something tiny and green is flinging from an ice cream bucket swinging wildly at his side. He sings up to me stocking corn at the roadside stand, “I picked the cucumbers.”

He must be pretending with new growth pine cones. It will be at least ten days before the cucumbers are mature enough to harvest. The male blossoms have been open for a week, but the female flowers just opened a few days ago and it’s been so cool and wet, I doubt the bees and native pollinators have even been working.

Then I see them clearly—the bucket is full to the top—thin, one-inch, just-on-the-start to becoming cucumbers. How could a five-year old [Read more…] about Deleted Scene — Turn Here Sweet Corn — Maize’s Cucumber Pick

Turn Here Sweet Corn Book Trailer

Enjoy and Share with your friends. Happy reading!

The Impermanence of Eden – The Chronicle of Higher Education

Scott Carlson, senior reporter of the Chronicle of Higher Education, has written a very personal and powerful book review of Turn Here Sweet Corn that frames the way each of us is connected to the story. Scott grew up living adjacent to the original Diffley farm He roamed and played on the land and worked for Martin as a teenager. As a child he was part of the first wave of housing as the market-garden township was developed into the city of Eagan.

He gets Turn Here Sweet Corn at the deepest level. The searching for permanence, and the relationships between events and groups and species.

The Impermanence of Eden, by Scott Carlson

Many journalists go into their line of work wanting to tell stories that will help fix the world, make something broken whole again. I have been writing about the environment, agriculture, city planning, and sprawl for much of my career—and I know that I, too, am trying to restore a lost world.

I grew up in the 1970s and 80s in Eagan, Minn., near an unusual farmer who worked a remarkable piece of land. The young Martin Diffley grew an array of vegetables on fields tucked amid grassy, protective hills and dense woods, a landscape much different from the deforested, monoculture farms so common in the region. Diffley established his Gardens of Eagan, one of the first organic farms in the Midwest, on land that had been owned by the Diffley family since 1855; pesticides and other common agricultural chemicals had never been used on it. But its edenic traits could not save it. In the late 1980s, as the Twin Cities oozed into the countryside around it, the forests were bulldozed and the hills flattened to make way for unimaginative houses in various shades of beige.

The story behind the loss of that place forms the broken heart of Turn Here Sweet Corn (University of Minnesota Press), a new memoir by Atina Diffley, Martin’s wife. The book is billed as a gardening guide, love story, business handbook, and legal thriller, but it is really a wrenching tale of a common yet private tragedy: the way development pressures push farming families off the land, and what happens to those families during and afterward.

Atina Diffley comes from Midwestern farming stock I recognize—a family in which strong women and children hold the farm together and get the work done, while the men escape. After a few years of idealism, a failed marriage, and some missteps, she settles down with Martin in Eagan as a single mom, falling in love with not only the man but also the land. Its places, named by the family, give it almost a mythical quality: the Plains of Abraham, the Big Oak Woods, Treasure Hill, the Crown Jewel, and the Bridge Ravine, where 10-year-old Martin once chopped down a tree to span the ravine. Martin and Atina lie in the grass while he talks about Eagan’s old-timers and their history there.

“I had always thought the expression ‘good connections’ meant knowing people in high places,” Atina writes, “but it’s the clerk in the grocery store, the farmer down the road with manure, the teller at the bank. This is what creates a secure community.” . . . Read the Article.

Stepping Into The Perspective Of Another

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During a recent interview, I was asked why I choose to write Turn Here Sweet Corn as a personal story. I explained that I wanted the reader to feel the characters’ experience. The intellect is involved with understanding the issues, but the heart needs to be engaged for behavior to change.

The interviewer then commented on my referral to myself as “the character.” I told her that during the writing process I would objectively separate myself from the character “Atina.” I would collect information about her and all the major characters in the book, what they cared about, what their favorite color was, what made them happy, and much more. I grew to know them intimately.

Most importantly I would ask what each of the characters wanted and needed.

It’s helpful not only for memoir writers to step without bias into the perspective of another, but also for farmers. [Read more…] about Stepping Into The Perspective Of Another

Taking Care Of The “Me” In “We.”

An “Organic Relationship Plan” Starts With Ourselves.

I am preparing an all day workshop for Land Stewardship Project called Quality of Life Workshop: Systems and Communication Tools for a Healthy Farm Partnership.

This workshop was inspired by common themes that have challenged many of my clients as well as my own experiences running Gardens of Eagan with my husband Martin. The bottom line—farming is a demanding lifestyle; good communication skills, farm systems, and personal care are crucial to balancing family, farm, relationships, and self.

The class outline begins with 1) Having The Same Vision: For a partnership to be successful, all parties involved must agree on the same goal and direction—set a clear agreed on course for the farm that meets and allows for the needs of both partners.

Holistic goal setting is a crucial strategy for farmers and I strongly encourage you to explore it further at Whole Farm Planning with Holistic Management. We will in the class. The focus of this post is the last part of this vision—meets and allows for the needs of both partners.

[Read more…] about Taking Care Of The “Me” In “We.”

What Is A Farm?

farm (färm). n. 1. A tract of land devoted to agricultural purposes.

No. The land is not the farm. That is so clear. How could a major dictionary have got it so wrong? The land was here long before the farm and long before the people or the business. The land is completely its own. The people and the business need the land. The land does not need either.

A farm is a synthesis of the land, the people, and the business. A blending. A new entity with a personality–that is the farm. No two combinations are the same; each farm is unique, with its own character. The land contributes its climate, topography, soils, precipitation, biological diversity and eco-systems. It is fixed in a location. The people bring their passions, skills and labor, their relationships, creativity, and emotional patterns. The business brings its financial capacities, its reputation and earned good will, the culture and market it operates within. There is no one-size-fits-all. Each farm must develop its own strength and place.

When one aspect is changed all are affected.

Excerpt from Turn Here Sweet Corn: Organic Farming Works

© Atina Diffley 2012

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We live in relationships—

And one more piece of the community fabric in Dakota County, MN. has just been torn. The bi-monthly Fahey consignment auction (I often called it the “buy-monthly” as it was a main source of equipment and tools for Gardens of Eagan for thirty+ years) has discontinued it’s on-site, in-person portion of the auction and is only available through on-line bidding.

Martin told me this at the breakfast table today. I can easily see the financial and logistical gains in discontinuing the in-person portion, the liability, the managing of people and parking their trucks, the crowd of bidders lining up for their  number and again to pay at the end, the cigarette butts dropped and the churned mud from boots. No more bad auction days when it is freezing and pouring rain and only the most determined of deal-searches will stand outside all day waiting for a possible buy. [Read more…] about We live in relationships—

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Turn Here Sweet Corn by Atina DiffleyAtina's Memoir

Turn Here Sweet Corn

A lesson in entrepreneurship, a love story, and a legal thriller

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Turn Here Sweet Corn . . . the CORN DANCE!

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