Calendula Seeds (Calendula officinalis)

Calendula officinalis

Pot marigold, calendula, flower of every month: this last nickname comes from the Latin calendae, the first day of the month, because this flower seems never to stop blooming. Farmers in the past even used it as a barometer: flower heads that remained closed in the morning foretold rain.

Characteristics:

• Indefatigable flowering: bright yellow to orange, from spring until the first frosts, on spreading, bushy clumps.
• Very easy: an annual that adapts to all soil types and reseeds itself from one year to the next.
• Versatile: flower beds, borders, rock gardens, containers or vegetable garden rows—it finds its place everywhere.

Sowing advice:

• Exposure: sunny; it tolerates light partial shade.
• Soil: truly all types, even poor, alkaline or stony soil, as long as it is well drained—it is one of the most accommodating flowers there is. No fertilization needed.
• Method: sow directly in place from March to May, covering the curved seeds with about 1 cm of soil. No pots or pre-soaking needed; germination is quick and very reliable. Thin to 30 cm apart. See how to sow your seeds.

Care advice:

• Regularly remove faded flowers: this is what keeps flowering continuously until the first frosts.

Harvesting advice:

• Pick fully open flower heads in dry weather, mid-morning, and dry them quickly in the shade, spreading out the petals.

Beneficial combinations:

• A vegetable garden classic: sown between rows of vegetables, its scent disrupts several unwanted insects, and its roots are reputed to cleanse the soil. It pairs well with dwarf nasturtium, another vegetable garden ally. See our vegetable garden companion plantings.

Benefits for biodiversity:

• Its widely open flower heads are accessible to a great diversity of pollinators, including small short-tongued species often overlooked by complex flowers.
• Its very late flowering, lasting until the first frosts, makes it one of the season’s last resources for insects.

Uses:

• Leaves and petals are edible: the colorful petals decorate salads, rice and desserts, which has earned the pot marigold the nickname “poor man’s saffron.” See our edible flowers.
• Traditionally used in cosmetics and homemade preparations for centuries.

Harvesting your own seeds:
Leave a few faded flower heads in place: they form crescent-shaped, curved seeds that are highly distinctive, turning brown and detaching easily once dry. Pot marigold also reseeds itself generously. See how to store your seeds.

Commitment to Quality: at SemiSauvage - Permaculture, we grow and select our seeds with respect for living things as our guiding principle. Based near the Volcanoes of Auvergne, we choose reproducible, non-hybrid varieties, tested for their germination rate, carefully sorted and packaged, with no chemical treatment. Our belief: to give gardeners back the ability to resow, year after year, seeds that truly belong to them.

Add these pot marigolds to your garden for their bright color and usefulness in the vegetable garden.