There is a good reason why your mother always told you to eat your veggies!

My husband’s family has a genetic propensity for Type II Diabetes. Because of this, we take measures to fortify against acquiring it, by growing and eating lots of healthy (and very specific) vegetables, as well as spending time outside being active in the garden. This article lists the best vegetables to plant in your own garden to lower blood sugars, boost healthy antioxidants, and fight chronic illnesses such as diabetes.

Currently, more than 25 million Americans battle diabetes, which occurs when your blood glucose (or blood sugar) is too high, or your body does not properly process food for use as energy. Your blood glucose is your body’s main source of energy, and comes from the food you eat. Insulin, which is a hormone created by your pancreas helps glucose from food get into your cells to be used for energy. When your body either doesn’t make enough insulin, or doesn’t use it’s own insulin properly, it causes sugars in the blood to build up. When blood sugars reach certain levels, this is known as diabetes.

With the proper combination of diet and lifestyle choices, type 2 diabetes can go into remission, but it requires commitment to healthy eating, meal planning, and regular exercise. If an individual can apply these principles and control their weight, they may be able reverse type II diabetes and its potential complications.

Mother nature has created a perfect remedy for Diabetes available right at our fingertips.

By eating specific vegetables, with high fiber, minimal carbohydrate levels, and low glycemic index scores, you can not only stave off chronic illness, but you can prevent other diabetes-related complications like heart disease, blindness, kidney failure, neuropathy, and other chronic diseases for good!

Not all veggies are created equal.

Some vegetables are just flat out better for you than others when it comes to blood sugar. Vegetables and produce contain vitamins, nutrients, carotenoids and antioxidants that can significantly reduce inflammation and assist in the production of anti-aging and revitalizing energies. Other vegetables, such as bitter melon (technically a fruit) can actually lower blood sugar levels.

So, how will you know which vegetables are best?

Pick some that are low on the glycemic index (GI) scale, rich in fiber, or high in nitrates that reduce blood pressure. What does it mean to be low on the glycemic index you ask? The GI ranking of a food shows how quickly the body absorbs glucose from that food. The human body absorbs blood sugar from high-GI foods much faster than low-GI foods. If you have diabetes, you will want to eat foods and vegetables with a low GI score in order to avoid blood sugar spikes. The glycemic index is a scale from 1 to 100, with high numbers indicating foods that raise your blood sugar faster. If a food has a GI score of 55 or less, it is considered to have a low GI score. Food that ranks between 56- 69 is a medium score, and food that ranks with a score of 70 or higher is considered a high, or bad GI score.

Additionally, glycemic load (GL) estimates the impact of carbohydrate consumption using the glycemic index while taking into account the amount of carbohydrates that are consumed in a serving. Thus, GL is a GI-weighted measure of carbohydrate content.

Below is a table of various vegetables you can grow in your garden that will help in your battle to stay healthy and control or stave off chronic illnesses such as diabetes.

In the battle against diabetes, leafy greens are your best friend. They are extremely nutritious, low in calories, and low in digestible carbs (which can raise blood sugar levels). Additionally, you will want to intake numerous vitamins and minerals, especially vitamin C, that has been proven to reduce inflammatory markers for fasting blood sugar levels.

It is also important to know that the method in which you prepare a food, as well as it’s ripeness can affect it’s glycemic load, or GI score. Did you know that fruits and vegetables become higher on the GI scale as they ripen (and sugars develop). Additionally, the more a food is processed, the higher the GI score raises. For example, mashed potatoes have a higher GI than a whole baked potato, and quick oats have a higher GI score than steel cut oats. Additionally, the method in which a food is cooked or prepared will affect it’s GI score as starches are restructured in the cooking process. (Al dente pasta is has a lower GI score than fully cooked soft pasta). Typically, the longer a food is cooked, the higher GI score it will have because its sugars will be digested and absorbed faster.

The following vegetables are fantastic at fighting diabetes because they have a score of 20 or less on the GI scale.

These vegetables are also easy to grow in your garden: asparagus, avocados, beet greens, bell peppers, bok choy, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, collard greens, cucumbers, fennel, green beans, kale, mushrooms, mustard greens, olives, romaine lettuce (and other lettuce), spinach, summer squash, Swiss chard, tomatoes, turnip greens.

(Pumpkin 75, parsnips 97, spinach 15, bell peppers 40, broccoli 10, strawberries 41, pears 38, tomatoes 15, sweet potatoes (boiled 46, baked 94 ), carrot 35, brussels sprouts 6, cauliflower 32, cucumbers 15, eggplant 15, sweet corn 55, green beans 15, kale 9, strawberries 40, avocado 15, apple 38, grapes 53, Chinese cabbage 2, grapefruit 25, blueberries 53, oranges 48, peaches 42, squash 51, banana 52, bitter melon, celery, onions 10, and beans, artichoke 7, asparagus 8, soybeans 14, peas 22, lentils 28, zucchini 15, lettuce 15, bell peppers 40, snow peas 22, tomato 13, watermelon 72

A few family favorites:

The following are some of our family garden favorites and tips on planting and harvesting.

1. Spinach

As with most non-starchy vegetables, you will need to eat a large amount of spinach to have enough carbohydrate intake to measure on the glycemic scale. In general, the lower the amount of carbohydrate in a vegetable and the more fiber it has, the less the rise in blood sugar will be. Spinach has very low glycemic index and glycemic load values. On the other hand, it is high in fiber.

It is best to plant spinach in the early spring, as long hot days will cause the plant to bolt (send up a seed stalk), and make small frequent plantings again during the late spring and summer. It will grow best in nigh-nitrogen and moist soil. Tip: Plant spinach in the shade of other tall plants, such as corn, so the young plants will be spared the hottest sun.

2. Broccoli

Broccoli is another superfood that is high in vitamins and nutrients, but low on the glycemic index. Broccoli loves sunlight, and cooler temperatures, and will germinate in soil as low as 40° F. Many gardeners will either plant their broccoli in the fall, or begin their broccoli indoors during winter or early spring for later transplanting outdoors.

Depending on your local frost dates, you will sow seeds or place transplants into your outdoor garden 2 to 3 weeks prior to the last spring frost. Broccoli will need moist and fertile soil that is slighty acidic. We amend our broccoli rows with rich compost before planting, and place each plant 12-24 inches away from it’s neighbor plant.

3. Cabbage

Our family also love cabbage, and has had great success growing it in our garden. Cabbage is another superfood that scores extremely low on the glycemic index. Cabbage can be tricky to grow, as it does best in cooler temperatures, and can be an attractant to several garden pests, such as cabbage worms, cutworms, and diamondback moth. Many gardeners and farmers start their cabbage plants indoors 6-8 weeks before they anticipate the last spring frost. Then, before transplanting the cabbage outdoors, “harden off” the plants by transitioning them from the protective indoor environment to the harsher conditions outside. Tip: Plant your cabbage on a cloudy day, so it will not be exposed to harsh sunlight immediately.

4. Zucchini

Zucchini is another superfood that scores less than twenty on the glycemin index, and is high in folates and carotenes, as well as vitamins A and C. Zucchini’s are a full sun plant that requires a mound or well drained soil to grow, as overly-wet soil may cause early rot. Zucchini grows best in warm soil and air, and can also be started indoors 2-4 weeks prior to your last spring frost an hardened off before transplanting. Unlike Broccoli, zucchini will not germinate in cold soil, and also requires a a good deal of space to grow. Tip: Be sure to give your zucchini 2-4 feet between plants to allow for good air circulation around each plant, as well as maximum production per plant.

There you have it. A few of our family favorites when it comes to diabetes-fighting super veggies. We also have an orchard as well as an herb garden that both produce extremely beneficial and nutritious produce when it comes to putting healthy foods on our kitchen table. We also work very hard to preserve our produce at harvest time to allow for consumption all year long. You can find links toour canning, bottling, and fermenting tips here.

There is an age-old technique that will help your fruit trees to yield a more consistent crop from year to year. The technique will also aid in producing a better tasting and dependable crop.  The technique is thinning the young fruit.

The technique sounds simple and it is.  There are however a few guidelines and tricks that can help with thinning young fruit. For years, I have wanted to aid my fruit trees to bear better fruit and to equalize the heavy producing years with the low producing years.  Thinning fruit is an exceptional time-tested method that works great.

Continue reading for tips and techniques for thinning your fruit trees.  

Why do we need to thin fruit on a tree?

Every spring I get excited to see all the blossoms show up on the fruit trees in my garden orchard. The first to bloom always seems to be the apricot trees.  I learned a song when I was young about “looking out the window and what did I see, popcorn popping on the aprico犀利士 t tree”.

It sometimes actually looks like popcorn on the apricot tree.  There are so many blossoms clustered thickly together it often appears as though there is one large blossoming branch.  This clustering is a mechanism of nature to ensure there are some surviving fruit, so the trees produce more blossoms than needed.

With this overabundance of blossoms comes an overabundance of fruit production.  The extra fruit puts a great deal of stress on the fruit tree itself, requiring extensive energy and resources to grow.  When the fruit isn’t thinned the tree can become overtaxed, weakened, and susceptible to disease, pests, and sunburn.

The surviving blossoms grow into fruit and compete for resources needed from the tree. If the fruit isn’t thinned, the remaining fruit will get stunted and not grow as well.  The size, color, and quality of the fruit will be compromised resulting in a sub-par product.

Fruit that is bunched up and laying on top of each other on the tree can promote diseases.  Brown rot is often passed from one fruit to another when touching.  Additionally, pests can easily traverse from fruit to fruit and do damage when the fruit is touching.

Have you ever noticed that one year you will get a bumper crop and the next year you get nothing?  The bumper crop heavily stresses the tree and it requires a year to recoup.

A plethora of fruit on the tree, (especially near the ends of the branches) will result in branches cracking or breaking. The weakened state of the tree together with the stress of production, as well as the weight of the fruit itself can overburden the branches.  I have often propped up limbs with boards and stakes to keep branches from breaking under the weight of fruit.  Our Peach and apple trees seem to be especially susceptible to this.

Thinning the fruit on your tree is a good thing

Thinning the fruit at the correct time will aid your crop and tree.  With the proper amount of thinning you will greatly reduce the stress on the tree and the fruit will be able to develop to its biggest size and best flavor.  Without having to compete for sunlight the fruit will get the best color and look.

Good pruning practices and thinning the fruit will also help regulate the tree.  The training of the tree through thinning and pruning will help get the tree to bear fruit every year instead of every alternate year. You can train your tree to actually produce high quality fruit every year.

Good pruning and fruit thinning will also help with the structural strength of the fruit tree.  With thinning the fruit. Particularly towards the ends of the branches, it reduces the weight on the tree branches.  When the wind blows, and the fruit matures the thinned fruit branches will be able to withstand a lot more wind and the weight of the fruit is not as much an issue.

The thinned fruit tree branches also will allow for air to get around the fruit.  The transition of disease and pests are lowered.  The fruit will be able to dry out after rain or irrigation and the growth of fungus or mildew will be greatly diminished.  The shape of the fruit will also be more optimal and look good.

Nature already thins the fruit to a point.

The blossoms and fruit will naturally thin themselves to a point.  Blossoms that are not pollinated will turn yellow and drop off just after flowering early in the season.  We have installed beehives into our garden orchard and so many if not all of the blossoms are pollinated resulting in a lot of fruit.

In June, or late spring, many small immature fruits will naturally drop.  This drop of immature fruit is often known as the “June drop”.  This natural drop will vary depending on your location and geography.  For instance, it happens in May in California. I would think that on the other side of the equator it would be more of the November drop.

Sometimes fruit that is diseased will drop.  Fruit that is infested with insects may drop.  Apples and pears can get infested with codling moths and drop prematurely.

For some types of trees, the natural thinning is all that is needed. Some of the naturally thinning fruit trees are:

• Cherries
• Bartlet Pear
• Persimmons
• Pomegranates
• Nut
• Apricot

Branches of persimmon and apricot trees may need to be thinned on particularly heavy years.

The Specific trees the need thinning

There are species of trees that as a general rule will need thinning of the immature fruit.  These include:

Stone Fruit Trees:

• Peach
• Apricot (this can vary from year to year)
• Nectarine
• Cherry (depends on variety and will vary from year to year)
• Plum (depends on variety)

Pome Fruit Trees:

• Apple
• Asian Pear
• Most European Pear

It is often a standard practice to remove all fruit from small young trees.  This allows the tree to focus on growth of the tree itself instead of being utilized by the fruit.  Once the tree is established then fruit can be allowed to grow, but you will need to use caution and thin the fruit to keep from breaking small weak branches.

When to thin the fruit.

Timing is important when thinning fruit.  You need to thin the fruit when they are immature and small.   This is typically from early to mid-spring.  In the United States generally from early April for early-ripening fruit like apricots, and up to mid-May for late-ripening fruit like apples.

Stone fruits should be thinned when the fruit is ¾ to one inch, or 1.9-2.5 centimeters.  Pome fruits should be thinned when the fruit is ½ to 1 inch, or 1.3 to 2.5 centimeters.  Generally, this occurs about 30-45 days after bloom.

Caution needs to be used on the timing of the thinning.  If you thin the fruit too early you can put the tree into stress.  The stress can result in slit pits in stone fruits, especially peaches.  If the fruit is thinned too late the remaining fruit might not increase in size and be stunted.

How much fruit to thin.

In deciding how much fruit to thin, it really depends on the species of tree and how loaded the tree is. For example plums, apricots and cherries are smaller fruit, so you can thin them to 2 to 4 inches apart, 5-10 centimeters.  Heavier fruit such as peaches and nectarines will need to be thinned a little further apart due to the weight of the fruit.  The heavier fruit should be thinned to 3 to 5 inches apart, or 7.7 to 12.5 centimeters.

How much to thin also depends on how much fruit has set on the tree.  Sometimes the fruit will only set on one or two branches.  Because the total number of fruit is down you will need to leave a little more fruit on the tree to ripen.

Stone fruit will produce one fruit per bud.  Pome fruits will produce a cluster of blossoms and fruit from each bud.  When thinning these clusters, you need to thin to one or two per cluster.  This will depend on the total number of fruit and the growing conditions.  Always try to keep the largest fruit when possible. These pome fruits should be thinned 6 to 8 inches, or 15 to 20.5 centimeters apart.

Different ways to thin the fruit

An effective way to thin fruit on a tree is by hand.  You can be really accurate and precise leaving the best fruit.  When hand thinning you can insect more closely and remove fruit that is damaged, misshapen, or small.  You will be able to use alternate sides of a branch to leave more fruit to ripen. On long branches you will want to remove the heavy fruit on the terminal end to lessen the chance of the branch breaking.

Another effective way of thinning is by using a pole.  The pole method is a lot faster, but accuracy isn’t as good and hand thinning.  When thinning with a pole you will want to attach something softer to the end.  People will use a piece of a garden hose, or cloth, or tape up the end to lessen the chance of damage to the tree.

The pole thinning technique is to strike the clusters of fruit and remove the fruit with the force of the blow.  It can be a little difficult to get this technique down, but practice makes perfect. With a little time you will be able to know how much force to use when hitting the clusters of fruit.  When you understand what you are doing it will get to where one hit or two will get the cluster of fruit thinned well. 

Final word.

Thinning fruit from your fruit trees can be a little disconcerting.  When you consider that the idea of more fruit is what you want, thinning the fruit seems counterintuitive.  Thinning the fruit will result in better quality fruit, as well as healthier fruit trees.  In combination of good pruning practices will result in a more consistent crop instead of being loaded with fruit one year and none the next.

Source.