A Ray of Hope? Or Just Another Seed Catalog

Summary

The website content discusses the potential benefits of gardening hobbies, particularly through the use of Jung Seeds and Plants' catalog, in providing relief and hope during challenging times, with a focus on unique offerings like microgreens, grafted tomatoes, and mini cucumbers.

Abstract

In the context of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the author emphasizes the importance of hobbies as a source of relief, hope, and positivity. The article highlights the Jung Seed Company catalog as a source of inspiration for gardeners, offering a wide range of seeds and plants, including the trendy microgreens, which are nutritious and add flavor to meals. The catalog also features grafted tomatoes, which are touted as "super plants" for their disease resistance and higher yields, although the author has yet to try them. Additionally, the article mentions the popularity of mini cucumbers and the convenience of growing them at home. The Jung Seeds and Plants' catalog is presented as a beacon of hope, providing a diverse selection of vegetable and flower seeds, perennials, trees, and shrubs to gardeners looking for a diversion from daily stressors.

Opinions

The author finds gardening hobbies, such as those facilitated by the Jung Seed Company, to be a valuable diversion from stress, including the stress related to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Microgreens are seen as an interesting and healthy addition to one's diet, with Jung Seeds and Plants offering a variety of seeds and grow mats to support their cultivation.
Grafted tomatoes are considered potentially beneficial due to their disease resistance and productivity, though the author has not yet personally experimented with them.
The cost of grafted plants, such as tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants, may be a concern, as they are priced around $10 per plant.
Mini cucumbers are regarded as a popular and convenient home-grown option, with Jung Seeds offering a hybrid variety that can be harvested when small and does not require peeling.
The author recommends hobbies, especially gardening, as a means to maintain hope and positivity during difficult times.

Jung Seeds and Plants

Jung Seed Company

In these troubling times, we have been looking for anything positive, anything to renew hope. I find through my hobbies I find relief, hope, positivity. It takes your mind off the daily grind. I found this especially true when I was still working. Upon retiring, I still found this true even though I no longer have the day to day stresses of working full time. However, my hobbies still provide a diversion from other stressors, the main one being of course at this time Covid-19. Having something to look forward to is extremely important.

As I wrote in a previous story, the seed catalogs are arriving. Today I will take a look at the Jung catalog, the latest one to arrive.

The J.W. Jung Seed Company was founded in 1907 in Randolph, Wisconsin. The company also publishes quite a few other seed catalogs including Totally Tomatoes, which I recently wrote about. This is a large catalog that comes in at 99 pages, and not only includes vegetable seeds, but also a large selection of flower seeds, perennials, trees, shrubs, and more.

Some interesting items:

Microgreens

These are becoming more popular. Similar to sprouts, however, microgreens grow until several sets of leaves develop. They are nutritious and add flavor to salads and sandwiches. Jung recommends using a soilless growing mat to decrease the chance of soil-borne diseases.

Jung offers microgreen seeds including arugula, broccoli, radish, basil, cilantro, and dill. They also have the fibrous grow mats. I think I am going to give them a try, how about you?

Grafted Tomatoes

This is a concept that has been around for a while. Grafted tomato plants involve joining the top of one plant (scion) with the root system (rootstock) of another. The idea is that the rootstock is more disease resistant and the resulting grafted plant is a “super plant” that is more healthy and produces larger harvests.

conservationgardenpark.org

I have never tried these plants but may try a few next season. Jung also offers grafted pepper and eggplant plants. The plants average around $10 a piece so the cost may be prohibitive.

Mini Cucumbers

Mini cucumbers, sometimes known as Persian, seem to be popular in grocery stores. They are great in salads as they are tender and sweet. Now you can grow your own. Jung offers the Easy Snack Hybrid. These can be picked at 3 and 1/2 inches and don’t need to be peeled.

From Jung Seeds

In addition to the grafted tomatoes (relatively few varieties) Jung Seeds also offers a great variety of heirlooms and hybrids, whichever you prefer.

Heirloom Tomatoes/Author Photo

In summary, I strongly recommend hobbies especially in these troubling times. Of course, most of you reading this already have one: writing (and reading). We need all the hope we can get.