Harvesting and Saving Marigold Seeds

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     I love planting marigolds in my garden because they are so great at helping to keep pests away from my tomatoes, peppers and other plants.  Not only that, they attract pollinators like bees!  I'm so happy to report that my garden attracted many bees and ladybugs to it this year!  Marigolds also bloom profusely and add extra beauty to the garden.  Once the blooms begin to dry out on the plant, it is super easy to harvest the seeds and save them for next year!  That is a money saving way to have marigolds every year without having to purchase more seeds, and since the plants you had were healthy and beautiful. the ones that you plant from your own seeds will be just like them the next year!  

​Harvesting Seeds

     You may remember this photo of my marigolds from this post:

Since that photo, my marigolds grew very expansively into a huge plant covered with blossoms!  It was beautiful, but it was crowding out some of my other plants!  I had to prune it down!  I put some of the blossoms in a vase in my family room and they were so cute, but I also saved the blossoms that were already spent and dry in order to save the seeds! 

     Here is my latest video short about saving marigold seeds: 

     Here is a slideshow tutorial:

     You are probably noticing that I have collected a ton more seeds than I am going to want to plant next season, so this is a great opportunity to turn some of my seeds into gifts for other people to grow!  

Storing and Gifting Seeds: Idea # 1

     First of all, I wanted a nice way to store my seeds that would keep them out of the light, make them easy to manage and that would enable me to give them away a simple gifts to other people.  I searched the web and found this adorable way to fold origami type seed packets and I fell in love with them! The website is called Mud and Bloom and she gives a very good tutorial for folding paper to make these little seed envelopes.

     As you can see, I used various types of scrapbooking paper to fold my envelopes.  I tried folding some with cardstock, but it is much more difficult to use and I feel like regular paper is better for this project. 

     After folding the envelopes, I wrote the name of the seeds that I was saving on the outside, before adding the seeds.  

I also had some pumpkin seeds to save!

        I gently filled the envelopes with a good amount of seeds.

     Now, I have packets of marigold seeds to save for myself in my seed stash and to give away as friends. 

​Idea #2:

     My second idea for gifting seeds is to make homemade paper seedling hearts to plant.  Well, they don't have to be hearts, they can be any shape, but this time I'm using hearts with a printable card that I came up with.  Be sure to let me know what you think. 

     I made paper seed hearts once before for my daughter-in-law's bridal shower.  They made really cute favors for the guests.  You can see that post here.  Because I still had left over dried marigold blossoms and seeds mixed together, I thought how great they would look as seed paper.  You can follow the tutorial on that post, plus add the following steps:

    Once the hearts were dry, if I felt like they needed a few more petal, I used a water soluble school glue to stick them to the dried paper. 

     Once I made the seeds, I wanted to make a card to attach them to that would be a cute presentation for whoever I decided to gift them to.  This is what I came up with: 

Front

Back

     I printed these on 4 x 6 cardstock, front and back.  You can click here for the file. 
I stuck the heart to the front of the card with double stick tape.
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     I think that these would make sweet little just because gifts, thank you gifts or neighbor gifts for anytime of the year.  Maybe even teacher gifts or party favors!     
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      One more thing about marigolds is that they are edible!  I've been researching ways to use them and as soon as I finish my trials with my marigolds, I'll let you know how it turns out!  
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