Gardening can be a fun hobby, with positive impacts on the environment and a person's mental and physical health. It can also be time-consuming, expensive, and finicky on the best of days, but luckily, Instagram user the Disco Garden (@thediscogarden) has a simple hack with marigolds to stretch your dollar and planting options.
The scoop
In a video shared on their page, Amber and Nick showed that you can take your spent marigold blooms and, by gently rubbing them open, get a whole packet's worth of seeds from just one "deadhead" bloom.
"This tip has saved me so much money over the years and is a great hack to build up a large population of marigolds in your garden," they wrote in the caption. "Plus, you'll be deadheading regularly anyway to encourage more blooms, why not harvest the spent pods and instantly replant the seeds?? Seriously… when we learn the rhythm and dance of Mother Nature, the abundance is kind of overwhelming."
They did advise against replanting in hot months, saying you can always save the seeds for planting next season.
How it's working
Marigold seed packets vary wildly in price, with some on Amazon listed as high as almost $10, while others available at stores are much cheaper. But reusing the pods eliminates an enormous amount of environmental factors, like driving, shipping, and packaging. It also reduces consumption by using what you already have in an incredibly eco-friendly way.
Marigolds offer a host of benefits to a home garden as well. They attract pollinators and function as "trap plants," keeping slugs away and luring ladybugs to eat pests. They are also edible and can be used in home remedies to combat inflation.
More and more studies are showing that gardening — and even just general exposure to nature — has incredible benefits for an individual, so taking a few extra seconds to save some seeds in your garden is well worth it.
What people are saying
People in the comments of the post loved the tip.
"My favorite hack is dead heading and seed saving! I've done this with my marigolds now I'm waiting for a couple calendulas!" one person wrote.
"My very first 'entrepreneurial venture' s a child was collecting Marigold seeds and selling them to my neighbors door -to-door. I was probably 8 YO. Good memories," said another.
Someone else wrote: "I had NO IDEA you can do this in the same season."
Others offered additional tips, like making sure the deadhead is completely dried out and the seeds are hard and black before planting.
Another person wrote: "Marigolds deadheads are my favorite to collect bc you get SO many seeds from one flower."
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