Mary’s Gold

Calendula officinalis, the “official” marigold, here pictured growing in our gardens in the spring. This is the preferred herbal variety. We have another, smaller, weedier form that is just as pretty but has smaller blooms. These are “Mary’s Quarters,” so to speak; the weedy forms are more like “Mary’s Pennies.”

Hi All: There’s gold, there’s “fool’s gold,” and then there is “Mary’s Gold.” As I sit down to write you a brief note, I see that gold is trading today at $2742.8 per ounce. We have a lot of “gold,” on the farm, but not this metallic, shiny, valuable kind, so I don’t usually pay much attention to price fluctuations in the precious metals markets.

“Fools gold,” or Pyrite, is a metallic, flakey, mineral that glitters and flashes in the pan. If you find yourself prospecting up along the American River in the Gold Country you might strike “Fool’s Gold.  Pyrite isn’t real gold, but”Fools’ Gold” may not just be for fools any longer. Pyrites can contain lithium, which is a material that is increasingly useful (and valuable) to the renewable energy markets for the production of lithium batteries. I don’t have any fool’s gold either. But I’m rich in “Mary’s Gold.” I’ve got lots of marigolds!

Before Mary was born, met Joseph, or talked to Angels, “marigolds” were known to Romans as “Calendulas,” which means “little calendars” in Latin. With its brilliant orange and yellow flowers, the Calendula was much esteemed in the Old World for its putative medicinal properties and its use as an ornamental and culinary plant. A Calendula’s golden petals can be plucked from the flower head and used to color food as a “Poor Man’s Saffron. ” The plant was historically treated as a “pot-herb,” and it found its way into soup pots AND into witches cauldrons. Some people alleged that drinking calendula tea would enable the seeker to see fairies.  And across South Asia, the Calendula’s bright orange wintertime blossoms were appreciated since ancient times and used to decorate shrines and honor the gods.

Even when the old, Pagan ways of doing things were upended across Europe by the moral demands of the new, upstart Christian religion, the calendula managed to hold on to its honored place in spiritual botany. Mary, the virgin Mother of Jesus, took on relevance as a cosmic Earth Mother in the new world order. The iconic, celestial blue cloak that Mary wears in so many statues and images represents the heavens that envelopes us all in its starry veil. And, just to bring things back down to earth, the story I heard is that as Mary walks the earth, bringing relief to the suffering, weary people who have faith in her love, marigold plants are sown in the soil by her footsteps. When calendulas sprout and bloom with the winter time rains  Mary’s tracks are carpeted with orange, daisy-like, calendula blossoms- her heavenly “coins,” so to speak, that spring from the earth, year after year.

It seems incomprehensible, but these Cempasuchil marigolds, Tagetes erecta, an inheritance from ancient Mexico, are often called “African Marigolds.” No! The Africans invented mathematics, coffee, AND the Blues, but the Mexicans have this marigold to their credit.

I flatter myself to think that Mariquita farm has been visited many times by the Cosmic Earth Mother, because our fields are practically plagued with wild marigolds every spring. It’s pretty to see the green grasses dotted with Mary’s gold but there can be so many wild calendulas popping up that they have to be hoed out for our crops to thrive.  When the Spaniards invaded the Americas they brought their arts, their guns, their religion, their livestock, their diseases, and their weeds with them. Some botanists would suggest that the hooked, burr-like seed of the calendula came into California as “stickers” in the tails of Spanish Cattle, but that’s “BS;” lol. I’m going with the Calendula’s presence in our fields as a seasonal manifestation  and reminder of a visitation from Mary,  Jesus’s mom and the Queen of Heaven and Mexico. forThe wild calendulas on our farm are very happy growing throughout Central California’s mild, coastal climate; it’s just like the Mediterranean conditions that they originally evolved in. 

Small farms that produce vegetables for local markets are called “truck farms.” Here’s our truck. I recently gave her a new paint job so that she wouldn’t feel out of place among all the colorful fruits, vegetables, and flowers that we grow.

The Spanish didn’t only take America’s gold bullion back to Europe. Besides gold, the Americas were rich in native crops previously unknown to Europeans.  Besides corn, squash, beans, chilies, tomatoes, potatoes, and sunflowers, America’s first peoples developed both chocolate AND vanilla! And the so-called  ‘African marigold.'” From Central Mexico down through Central America indigenous religious shrines were decorated with dazzling gold, aromatic, Cempesuchil flowers. It didn’t take long for Spain’s spiritual caste to accept the cempasuchil as a New World “marigold,’ and to employ its orange blooms  in festivals like “El Dia de Los Muertos.”  And for their part, Spain’s merchants were quick to export these “new” marigolds to Asia, along with the cargoes of stolen gold that they were using to buy the spices of the Indies. The cempasuchil promptly found favor in India as a bold, richly-scented alternative to the old-school calendula marigold. India’s warm, humid, climate proved to be a hospitable environment for the cempasuchil and soon its gold flowers were cultivated on an industrial scale to serve and ornament religious holidays like Diwali. 

We will be getting our wood-fired oven stoked up for our Day of The Dead celebration with the Jack O’Neil restaurant.

Just as Central California’s moist, mild winter is amenable to calendula marigolds, so our summers are perfect for growing cempasuchil marigolds. On Mariquita Farm we grow a variety of cempasuchil called “Chedi Orange,” which is a tall, sturdy variety with a flower exactly the same color of orange as a Vietnamese Buddhist Monk’s robes are. We aim to harvest flowers in time for both Dia De Los Muertos and Diwali. These two Holy Days usually fall around the same time of year, so for us, if I can get tiny marigold transplants into the ground by July 25th, I’ll have a nice crop by Halloween that’ll last through Diwali. When the field is in full bloom the effect is spectacular. We pick the flowers to sell either by the bunch or loose, by the 100 count of bagged blossoms, for garlands. It’s been fun to learn my way around this crop, and it’s a joy to be out in the middle of the flowers. We may not have any gold to spare, or even any fool’s gold, but we are the Mother Lode of Marigold! Come see for yourself! We are offering what I believe to be California’s ONLY marigold U-Pick! See the details on the events page of our website, mariquita.com.

The pumpkins are getting ready for their big day!

If you feel more about experiencing the marigolds without having to work you are invited to the Day of The Dead Celebration that we are hosting with our friends from the Jack O’ Neil Restaurant at the Dream Inn in Santa Cruz. Chef Gus has been supporting the farm for a number of years now. He and his team will be preparing a meal that reflects both his kitchen’s seasonal, our farm to your table philosophy as well as the traditional Mexican flavors of this colorful and evocative festival. Come help us compose a floral ofrenda that pays respect to those loved ones who have passed on.

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