Christopher Columbus, who discovered a new continent in October 1492, gave the inhabitants of the globe food for the body - potatoes, for the mind - tobacco, for the soul - marigolds. Once amazed at the beauty of tagetes (the original name of the flower), people wanted to admire the orange splendor every year, so they started collecting planting material.
“There will not be a good tribe from a bad seed” - a proverb relevant to the human breed, animals and flowering plants. A flower bed, lawn or border delight the eye when the plants are healthy, full, bright, plentiful and bloom for a long time. The article will tell you how to collect marigold seeds, which always adorn the house landscape.
Brief Introductory
Instructions for readers who are short of time, but want to clarify how to properly collect marigold seeds:
- Harvest time: end of August-October.
- Weather: no precipitation.
- Capacity: bucket, bucket.
- Technology: break off a dried flower, knead with your fingers, sprinkle seeds in a container, throw out the bed.
- Lay out the collected seeds on a flat surface, dry for three days, remove debris, put in a paper bag until spring.
A photo of how to collect seeds from marigolds will help you navigate the procedure.
Justification of choice
Marigolds are the favorites of garden interiors. These abundantly flowering plants:
- get along with other annual flowers in a limited space;
- drought tolerant: even after a week of heat, after abundant watering, the stem comes to life and gives new buds;
- repel pests; marigolds themselves are susceptible to two diseases: due to waterlogging of the soil, a fungus may develop, and due to prolonged drought, a spider mite may appear; here it is important for the gardener to observe agricultural technology;
- endowed with a tart "oriental" aroma, which allows inflorescences to be used in therapy and cooking;
- the palette begins with yellow and ends with golden ocher;
- buds open to frost.
Portrait of a hero
The plant has dark green leaves, stem and buds. When the flower’s life cycle comes to an end, the bright petals dry out, the sepals acquire a sandy tint.
The seeds of the flower are elongated, dark black, with a pointed tip of the seat and a fluff on the upper end.
There is a technique for collecting marigold seeds at home.
- Choose a dry day when the previous day was dry. Eliminate moisture in the seed bud. Wet seeds quickly mold.
- Break off the dry stems. If the stem is not dry enough, then cut the bud with scissors or secateurs so as not to damage the plant as a whole.
- Mash the bud, remove the sepals and the bed, spread the seeds in a thin layer on a flat surface. It is not suitable to use plastic, ceramic or oilcloth for drying, since the seeds sweat on such materials. Use a wooden board or natural cotton or linen cloth for drying. In no case do not spread in the bright sun.
- Dry seeds folded into breathable paper bags or boxes. In plastic bags, the seeds may become moldy.
- The storage room should be dry, dark and well ventilated. In a city apartment, the lower shelf of the refrigerator door or a cabinet under the kitchen window in Khrushchev will do. Seeds cannot be overheated, therefore packages with planting material cannot be placed near the battery.
Harvest time
It is necessary to accurately understand when to collect marigold seeds for seedlings. Flowering begins depending on the time of planting in the soil. In the climatic conditions of the Southern Urals, flowers open in late June.
The life time of the flower until the seeds fully ripen is six weeks. The plant is good in that the flowers bloom sequentially one after another. If the gardener was late to collect the first buds with seeds, then you can always process the next batch of inflorescences.
It is important to wait for the ripening when the seeds become dark and hard. Unripe seeds will deteriorate during storage and will not yield a crop.
In October, flowering ends, you can cut the whole plant, hang it for drying in a well-ventilated room. It should be noted that ripened and dried seeds are independently separated from the bed. Therefore, it is useful to wrap the trimmed bushes before drying with gauze so that the seeds do not fly around the room.
Grains and tares
Not all seeds give 100% germination, which is determined by:
- maturity;
- drying conditions;
- storage options.
How to collect marigold seeds and weed out empty ones? The process of selecting complete seeds is called calibration. Suppose that the gardener collected and dried the seeds. Large specimens should be selected, since such specimens contain a sufficient supply of nutrients for spring germination.
The selection of seeds of the same weight and size guarantees friendly seedlings.
The selected batch of seeds is immersed for a couple of hours in a saline solution from one tablespoon of salt and five glasses of water at room temperature. After a set interval of time, good seeds go to the bottom, and empty seeds come up. Substandard material is removed. Calibrated specimens are washed and dried for final storage.
Métis and mulattos
Marigolds are cross-pollinated plants. This means that when plants of two or more colors are placed on a flower bed or lawn, seeds will ripen, which will give flowers that are completely unlike the parental color.
How to collect marigold seeds to preserve varietal coloring? There is only one option - initially plant a single variety. Yes, and this is not a panacea. Only 75% of the seed material retains its fully parental properties.
In order not to bother with annual seedlings, the site is sometimes planted with perennial varieties of marigolds, which propagate by dividing the bush and seeds. Self-grown seedlings of perennials will allow an adult bush not to injure, but to grow a magnificent curtain from it.
Decorate the balcony and menu
Own balcony can be used as a base for seed preparation. Flower container:
- fill with drainage and earth;
- plant seeds in March;
- in May, taking into account external temperatures, put the container on the balcony.
When growing seedlings, it should be remembered that minus one degree is an uncomfortable zone for the plant: the seeds turn sour and the young greens wither.
Marigolds will bloom, decorating and fragrant, and in September the bush will be cut and dried. No need to wait for special dry conditions. Seeds on the balcony are ready to harvest any day.
If there is no goal to earn income from the sale of self-collected seeds, then part of the flowers are used for cooking.
Pay attention to erect and rejected marigold varieties. Leaves and flowers are used in the preparation of salad and marinades, both fresh and dried. Store dried inflorescences in the same way as seeds - in a dry and ventilated room without bright light.