My husband has been termed prediabetic for many years. We were not educated on diabetes and didn’t really know what we should be doing about it. Last year when Covid entered our lives and we became “Safer At Home”, we took the opportunity to change our eating habits.
I began doing some research and familiarizing myself with diabetes. It’s really not hard to eat for diabetes. What is hard, is choosing the right foods early on when your body is adjusting to the low carb and sugar, making a thoughtful choice of high protein foods, salads and veggies and not what’s easy or in a drive-thru. It is a change in the way you live and your habits, not just eat.
When we first moved into our new home, we had a garden. It was quite a climate change from our previous location and we had a difficult time adjusting to a shorter and cooler growing period. Full time jobs, arthritis, and countless other things took over and we didn’t continue with it. We ended up with produce that didn’t get used or I couldn’t can or freeze fast enough, it left me feeling like I had failed and was wasteful of what God provided.
The garden plot is still there (somewhat) but is now the home to brush and fallen apples, this year that will change. At the beginning of the year, I had decided I wanted, at the very least, to grow a few tomatoes in buckets or pots to be used in salads or sandwiches. My honey went out one afternoon to pick up some hardware he needed for a project, and while he was at the local Menard’s, he surprised me by picking up some tomato seeds and one of the greenhouse trays with the expanding soil pucks. There is something satisfying about growing a seed into a small plant that will produce food later in the year, especially when it is single digit temps outside with the ground covered in snow and ice.
As we talked more about it and since we are both working from home, we tossed around the idea of doing a “full-blown” garden. We eat salad 3 to 4 lunches a week and do roasted or steamed veggies for dinner nearly every night. This change, along with The Big Green Egg for grilling or cooking our protein, has made an enormous difference in our weight and diets. We feel better and we are happier and healthier with just a little effort changing our diets. And since we are eating more veggies and at home for meals, we have justified trying a garden again.
Today I thinned and repotted the babies, we decided on the other seeds we want to start indoors and chose some to sow when the ground has thawed and is tilled. It’s exciting, it makes me feel like I am channeling my Grandfather (but I know I will never be 10% the gardener he was), I chose some red radishes for our salads to plant in his honor. After so many months of being in limbo with Covid and not being able to do anything or go anywhere, I feel like there is a plan again. A purpose, sort of. Our lives have been reset, we have been gently nudged by Covid and God to slow down and enjoy where we are. I think I will listen.
“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” — Audrey Hepburn