It’s September, and I have marvelous marigolds on my mind. Of course I do: they’re right there as I open the living room window, looking back at me every morning from a mini-border I planted this year.
I’m eyeing them eagerly because this year I got some variegation on my marigolds that makes this corner look like an Alice in Wonderland movie set. Look at these swirls and edges. I’ve decided I’m going to run an experiment and see if I can keep them going for one more year.
And for that, I need to save my marigold seeds.
As a side note: I know that there’s a chance that the saved seeds won’t display the same variegation. But this is the third time I’ve gotten lucky with variegated flowers begetting variegated flowers the following year. I intend to keep my lucky streak by saving seeds from the variegated flowers separately from the color-block flowers again.
I’m currently growing French marigolds (Tagetes patula, actually native to Central and South America), but all of my seed-saving tips also apply if you’re growing American marigolds (Tagetes erecta, also called Aztec marigolds) or signet marigolds (Tagetes tenuifolia).
Pssst! If it’s too early to apply my tips in your growing zone, you can save the article by adding it to your bookmarks, saving it on Pinterest or sharing it on Facebook. (You’ll know where to find it later.) Or do what I do and leave the tab open in your browser only to remember to check it again eight months from now.
Tip #1: Leave your best buds standing before you collect seeds.
No, I don’t mean your friends. The buds, as in the blooms, as in you’d better stop deadheading your marigolds early if you want anything left over to dry.
If you’ve been in an end-of-summer deadheading frenzy as I have, spent marigold seed heads have been on the chopping board.
When my marigolds first started blooming (this year it was in early July), I deadheaded them to encourage more flowers to pop up. (And even though marigolds are annuals, they are pretty sturdy ones that respond well to deadheading.) As their season progresses, I continue to deadhead them in order to make the flower borders look a bit neater.
Well, now’s the time to be content with what we have and allow the current wave of flowers to go to seed. If you see flowers that look particularly large and healthy, those will be the chosen ones.
What I love about marigolds is how eagerly they embrace multigenerational living.
On the same plant now (in mid-September) I have four generations of flowers. There are the dry seed pods, the petal-less but not yet dry pods, the full blooms, and the buds just starting to form. It’s so cool!
It also means that I have a pretty good choice of large, healthy flowers that have gone to seed. There’s no point in waiting for the last batch of flowers of the season in order to collect their seeds. That would be the buds that haven’t yet opened. And I guarantee they won’t be very vigorous that late in the season.
Tip #2: Allow the seed pods to dry on the plant as long as possible.
When it comes to collecting seeds, timing matters a lot.
I have this one rule when it comes to collecting flower seeds in the fall, and I’m especially diligent to apply it to marigold seeds.
My rule goes like this: always let all the seeds stay on the plant as long as possible. That’s because I want them to dry naturally.
My goal is to essentially mimic nature, the knowledgeable Mother that has all our gardening answers. Think about when the seeds would be dropped off naturally, without any human yanking at them. Only when they’re fully dry and the seed pod opens up and comes off the stem. That’s when the seeds are at their most viable.
Now I’ll be the first to admit this is based purely on my own results. A lot of the time, I’ve jumped the gun on picking seed pods that weren’t fully dry, and I’ve regretted it.
The germination rate the following year was lower, and a couple of times, the seeds weren’t fully dry and grew a bit of mold in storage. This is a real risk with larger seeds, such as marigolds, that tend to store more moisture than minuscule seeds (such as nigella and cosmos).
How do I know when my marigold seeds are dry?
Have a look at the pods below. One of them is fully dry, and one is almost there, but not quite ready yet. Can you guess which is which?
That’s right, the seed pod I’m holding in my left hand is ready for collection and storage. You can see the pod (called a calyx) is brown and dry. It cracks easily, and the seeds inside it also feel dry to the touch.
You can snap off or cut off the whole seed pod, or simply crack it open and just collect the seeds. If they’re dry, they should also come off easily when you pull them up from the top.
Tip #3: Collect marigold seeds on a dry day.
I realize this third tip might clash with the one above. If I’m leaving seed pods standing on the plants until they’re dry, that might take me into late fall. Which around here is smack-dab in the middle of the rainy season.
We make it work, precisely because we need dry seeds. As much as possible, I try to collect the seeds when it’s dry. I’ll dry them anyway, but they’ll take much longer to be ready for storage if they’ve been soaking wet after a whole week of rain. We want the sun to dry the seeds, if that’s not too much to ask.
Can you guess how many seeds there are in a single pod?
I counted the seeds in three pods (not the same number of seeds, by the way). I’ll leave the answer in the last paragraph of the article. I’m super curious if anyone comes near with their guess.
Tip #4: Always dry marigold seeds thoroughly before storage.
Which brings me to my: Whatever you do, please do not skip this step! tip.
We have to take the seeds out of the pod. Have to!
I’ve been known to store entire seed heads without bothering to remove the individual seeds, but I would never do that with marigolds. We need to dry them as well as possible before storage, and we can’t be sure they’re dry enough if we leave them packed in the calyx.
What I usually do is put the seeds in a bowl or lay them on a tray or on a kitchen towel and dry them in the sun. It may take a full day or a couple of days.
If you decide to dry them outdoors, you have to cover them with a weighed-down paper or kitchen towel. Lest a gust of wind decides to plant them for you right here, right now. (Yup, it happened to me; the first batch of seeds ended up scattered all over my porch.) Or simply dry them in their own pods for now. They’re not as likely to blow away.
What do marigold seeds look like?
Before we go on to storing seeds, I want to make things a bit clearer. Just so we know what’s worth storing. Marigold seeds don’t look like other seeds, so if this is your first time saving the seeds, it might look a bit confusing.
Here’s what we’re left with once we cut the dry seed pod off the stem and take it apart:
- The left eye – those are dry petals. We don’t need them, so they can go in the compost or in a potpourri.
- The right eye – that’s the calyx, where the seeds developed. It has done its job, keeping the seeds safe. We don’t need it anymore.
- The smile – now we’re talking. These wispy long strands of straw are our seeds. This is what we’re storing.
- The marigold fringe – just indulge me. This is probably the only time when getting a fringe is a good idea for me.
Tip #5: Store marigold seeds right.
When storing seeds – any seeds – we have to remember the place is CDD. This also applies to marigold seeds.
They need to be stored in a location that is Cool, Dry, Dark (CDD, see?)
Here’s what that means:
- COOL – not necessarily in the fridge, but not in a seed box next to the fireplace or in a basket next to the radiator. Also, it’s probably a bad idea to keep them in freezing temperatures. No storage bins full of seed packets under the carport, like I’ve witnessed in consternation at a relative’s house.
- DRY – not damp, not wet, not on top of the kitchen cabinet where all the spaghetti steam rises or in a shed that turns into a wet room over the winter;
- DARK – again, we’re trying to mimic Mother Nature, who drops a layer of dry leaves in the fall to tuck in seeds. As the leaves degrade over the winter, the seeds stay dormant. They’re getting ready to germinate right as the light starts to reach them in spring. I don’t have a layer of dry leaves in my garage, but I do have a pretty storage box that will keep the seeds in the dark.
I store my marigold seeds in a paper envelope or a small spice jar. And all the seed bags are stored in a lidded storage cardboard box in my basement. It stays dry, cool and dark all winter long.
I’m so happy you decided to save marigold seeds, dear reader. It’s such a happy, low-maintenance bloomer that can grow in any type of soil – from heavy clay to sand to lush garden beds. And if we keep saving seeds every year, these new marigolds will only get stronger as they’re better adapted to our specific garden conditions.
How many marigold seeds in a single pod?
Answer: In case you were wondering, there were one hundred and two seeds in the first pod I counted, seventy-nine in the second pod and eighty-three seeds in the third one. That’s a lot of future marigold flowers!
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