Starting marigold seeds indoors is an easy way to produce massive quantities of these beautiful flowers.
Marigolds were the first flower seed I started from seed. As backyard chickens are the gateway to homesteading, marigold seeds are the gateway to sowing all your flower seeds.
I find marigolds absolutely beautiful, especially in their shades of bright yellow, but I love them all. I never minded their scent, whereas other people cannot stand it. Their different scent is good for the garden to keep certain bugs away while brining in the bees with their bright colors
Why Start Your Own Marigolds from Seed?
Marigolds are one of the easiest seeds to grow for beginners. The seeds are larger and it does take putting soil on top of them for germination.
I am never against buying transplants from a greenhouse or garden center. For me, I can leave farm stores without baby chicks for the most part, but to leave a greenhouse without some sort of flower, now, that’s a struggle. But I haven’t bought marigolds at a greenhouse in years.
They’re just so easy to start from seeds indoors or outdoors, and inexpensive. A pack of marigolds for $2-$4 that will produce hundreds of plants. Yes, please!
When you buy your own marigold seeds to grow versus buying transplants from a greenhouse, you now have more control of what varieties you plant. This is important for the texture and structure of the blooms to the color and hues the bloom may be.
Where to Buy Marigold Seeds
Marigolds are a popular seed to buy, thus about every store or company that carries seeds will have marigolds available.
For cut flowers, I recommend Johnny’s Select Seeds. For cut flowers, I do like the hybrid varieties, especially Giant Yellow. For bedding varieties, I like to buy from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, Botanical Interests, Burpee, and MIGardener. You can compare prices between the three. Sometimes the companies will offer the same varieties, such as Kilimanjaro Marigold.
My Favorite Marigolds
- Giant Yellow marigolds are a cut flower variety with long stems that hold up a beautiful, heavy bloom with endless number of bright yellow petals, all uniform to the disk shape. I love yellow, but another close variety of this hybrid marigold is Giant Orange.
- Yellow French marigolds are the queens of the bedding flowers. French marigolds are petite with smaller blooms, although the plants can become huge if fed enough nutrients.
- Crackerjack African marigolds are my go to for companion flowers in the garden. Petite marigolds work too, but I find it fun to have a tall variety of marigold growing next to the staked tomato plants. The blooms are larger too on the African marigolds compared to the French petites.
When to Start Marigold Seeds Indoors
Marigold seeds take 6-8 weeks before the last spring frost date, when started indoors. My average last spring frost is May 15.
The earliest I should start marigolds is 8 weeks before on March 20. The latest recommended time to start marigold seeds is 6 weeks before on April 3. It is nice to have range of dates because if you are busier in end of March, then starting beginning of April is okay too.
If you are growing marigolds to sell in May, they need to be started even earlier than 6-8 weeks. I see the benefit of transplanting flowers before flowers bloom, but customers want to have flowers in bloom when they purchase them. They want to know what the flowers look like and their colors.
If you are direct sowing your marigold seeds, wait until all spring frosts have passed. Predict to sow after your average last frost date, but if a few a days before with 10 forecasted days that have no frosts predicted, then I’d say it is okay to sow the seeds.
What do Marigold Seeds Look Like?
Marigold seeds are long black seeds with one end a light brown, where it previously connected to the dried flower petals. The seeds are a bit flat, but are large enough to pick up easily.
How to Sow Marigold Seeds Indoors?
For any standard seed-sowing, I start plants in 72-cell trays with a no-hole tray underneath to catch any excess water from dripping to grow lights, trays, and the floor below.
Fill the cell trays with moistened seed starting mix. I like to use Lambert All-Purpose. Having it pre-mixed is great in saving time, but I like it because it is balanced between the peat moss, perlite, and vermiculate. Seed starting mix should not be compacted, but it should fill each cell to the top.
In every cell, create a hole ¼” deep. Add two marigold seeds. If one does not germinate, the other one should.
Cover with a small layer of seed starting mix.
How to Direct Sow Marigold Seeds?
If you don’t have a grow light or a greenhouse, yes this is the way for you! Or, if you are like me, you might not have the room to start all the marigolds you want to start from seed.
Loosen the soil. In the garden, we use a rototiller behind the tractor and a hand held one for when we are ready to plant just a small section- I call them my mini-fields. In a flower bed, I will use my garden twist tiller, which is essentially a hand-held manual rototiller that you twist to loosen the soil. For a container, just use your hands to aerate the soil.
Create a furrow either with a hoe, a small garden tool, or your hands. It should not be too deep, for the marigold seeds need to be planted at ¼” depth. If you can’t eye ball that, grab a ruler. It is not that deep really. If you end up planting even deeper, it will be okay. It just may take longer for the marigold seed to germinate.
Do Marigolds Need Light to Germinate?
Some flower seeds do require light to germinate. When the instructions on the seed packets say to cover the seeds with 1/4” of soil, then the seeds will be in darkness when they are first germinating.
Really for marigold seeds, it does not matter if they have light or darkness to germinate. But they do need warmer temperatures to germinate.
Do You Soak Marigold Seeds First?
You can, but I never do. They start fine in moistened seed starting mix. Soaking marigold seeds is to quicken germination rate, but as long as the soil is warm, it does not take marigolds that long to germinate.
How Long Does It Take Marigold Seeds to Germinate?
At 75 – 80°F, marigold seeds should take between 4-7 days. If the soil temperature is a bit lower, the seed should still germinate. It might just take it longer.
What Lightening is Necessary for Marigold Seeds?
For flowers, I give mine at least 12 hours per day, but it is recommended for 14-16 hours per day.
I start seedlings indoors under grow lights with timers set. Greenhouse with natural light would work, but realize too that in northern Pennsylvania in late winter and early spring, there is not super long day lengths available.
I do use an unheated greenhouse to move seedlings out to when they are older and closer to needing transplanted.
When Do You Start Fertilizing Marigold Seeds?
Once seeds germinate, their first set of leaves are their “baby” leaves. These baby leaves are called cotyledons. At this stage, all the nutrients for the seedling is still coming from what was available in the seed.
As the seedling continues to grow, the second set of leaves appear. These are the “true” leaves. When you look closely, you can see that these true leaves even look like the adult marigold leaves.
This is when it is time to start fertilizing your seedlings with a soluble fertilizer. Fish fertilizer does work, but beware that it will make your basement and house smell like fish poop. My dogs love it, but it is too strong for everyone else! Espoma soluble fertilizers are organic like fish fertilizer, but they don’t have the strong stench.
Thin and Separate Marigold Seedlings
When adding two marigold seeds per cell, there is also the chance that two marigolds will germinate. Our end goal is to have just one marigold per cell.
First, wait to do any thinning until the seedlings have their first set of true leaves.
I like to recommend two ways to thin seedlings. One way is to cut and thin out the secondary seedling. The second way is to pull and transplant the seedlings.
How to Cut and Thin Marigold Seedlings
One marigold seedling needs the whole cell for itself. It’s time to kick the one out to allow the other one to grow healthy.
Look at the two, maybe three, marigold seedlings to discover which one is healthier. Look for wider stems, green leaves, and taller stems for healthier plants. If all the seedlings seem to be equally healthy, choose the one that is closest to the center.
Take a pair of snips, and cut out the lesser seedlings to have the stronger seedling continue to thrive.
What I like best about this method is none of the roots of the stronger seedling are disturbed. They can continue to keep growing strong in the cell.
How to Pull and Transplant Marigold Seedlings
When pulling and transplanting seedlings, you are using every marigold you have started. This is good if you have low germination and want as many marigolds as you can have.
You do need to be careful because there is the chance of breaking the small seedlings.
First, remove the secondary seedlings by gently grasping the bottom of the marigold stem and pulling carefully out of the soil. If seedlings are close together, it is okay to pull more than one seedling out at one time. If it is easier to pull all the seedlings, then go ahead to then transplant all the seedlings from that cell.
Take the marigold seedlings and transplant into a new cell with pre-moistened seed starting mix. Create a hole for the seedling’s root to enter. This all depends on the size of the roots available.
Press the seed starting soil to secure the seedling in place.
Growing Marigolds from Seeds
Before you know it, you will be growing beautiful marigolds for your flower beds and your gardens. Fields of gold with some yellow French petites. Extra bees swarming around the African marigolds next to the tomatoes and the peppers. Yellow blooms in summertime bouquets. Beds filled with red, oranges, and yellows of fall, holding on until the heaviest frost comes along.
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