Growing marigolds


MarigoldMarigold seeds

Marigolds aren’t really in fashion at the moment – their simple flowers and brash colours don’t seem to fit in modern gardens. But they’re worth growing in a kitchen garden for two reasons. The first is that these simple flowers are the sort that bees and other beneficial insects love. And the second reason is that marigolds are known to be pest-repelling plants – good companions.

After an initial error with marigolds towering over the peppers they were supposed to be protecting, I stick to dwarf marigolds. I grow them in window boxes, and in amongst my tomatoes – they’re supposed to deter whitefly. It might not be scientific, but I’ve never had whitefly on my tomatoes!

Marigolds have nice big seeds that make them easy to sow. Sow them indoors early in spring for transplating outside later, or directly where you want them to flower from mid-spring onwards. They don’t need any special soil, aren’t fussy about position and don’t need much feeding, but will bloom throughout the summer.

Remove the faded blooms (dead head) to keep them flowering; towards the end of the summer you can leave some to set seed. You will get a lot of seed, and it’s easily detached from the flower heads and collected and stored. Marigolds are half-hardy annuals, so at the end of the summer you’ll need to pull them up – but you’ll never need to buy marigold seed again!

Posted 1 July 2009, 20:32.  

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