Saving Marigold Seeds

Big Orange Marigolds

O.K., now that we have saved the Zinnia seeds it was time to also harvest the Marigold seeds!  In the Spring we purchased Marigold plants that would have BIG yellow and orange blossoms.  We had visions of beautiful brightly colored blossoms in our gardens.  Well, all did not work out exactly as we had wished for.  Our drought brought a reduction in outdoor watering in my town.  Still our flowers managed to do o.k.  The new mulch helped a lot! Unfortunately, the rabbits enjoyed dining on the yellow Marigolds! The yellow flowers and the green plants! The orange colored flowers- they did not bother with.  It sure was strange to see large plants with bright orange flowers next to very small green plants.  Transplanting 2 of the small plants into pots was a good solution to seeing yellow blossoms this summer!  They are doing very well.  Those plants were definitely survivors, so I decided to save some of their seeds.  

Once again, the process of saving Marigold seeds is easy:

The colorful flowers are snipped from the stems and placed in a cut down Kleenex box to dry out.  After they are dry, the dried seeds will be separated from the stems.  The Marigold seed is slender and black.  It is attached to the dried out brown petal.

Saved Marigold Seeds
(File Photo)

The dried seeds will be placed in business sized white envelopes that are labeled/ sealed.  I saved seeds from both types of plants- the plants with orange flowers and the plants with yellow flowers, so they were saved in separate containers. 

**Note:  In your garden as the flowers dry out on a green plant, you can also save these dried flowers. Just pull the dried petals off and save the seeds.  This skips the process of drying out the blossoms yourself!  

Happy Gardening!
Enjoy!