FIELD OF FLOWERS

Our first marigold of the season. The variety is called “Chedi.”

Let me start with a simple disclaimer;  I do not intend in this article to promote, dispute, or ridicule any religious faith or tradition. Nor do I have any religious authority or aspirations to speak for god, or the gods. My only interest is in sharing what I’m learning about how to grow marigolds. It’s just that you can’t do much research into the interesting ethnobotany and Linnaean taxonomy of the marigold without soon becoming enmeshed in the theories, traces, and rumors of the divine. And that’s on top of the obvious misdirections and dead end paths that have been provided by marketing experts. The “African Marigold,” for instance, is not from Africa. We’ll get to that, but first let’s deal with our first Divinity.

In the early 1990s the Virgin of Guadalupe was said to have made a presentation in a grove of live oak trees in Pinto Lake County Park, here in Watsonville. An impromptu shrine grew up around the site. Predictably there were howls of outrage from Constitutionalist activists who were offended by a religious site being hosted on public property, but they soon got bored and went away. The shrine became part of the local landscape. Nowadays Mary’s oak tree no big deal, and soccer teams ritually visit the grove to be blessed by a Padre at the outset of the season the same way that a priest goes down to the harbor in Monterey to bless the fleet of fishing boats before they venture off into perilous waters. But while the “Just say ‘No’ to Mary in a public space” people were still squared off against the folks leaving flowers (AND CANDLES!) at the foot of the Virgin’s oak tree I took  time to talk with the people on my farm crew about the controversy.

The fog helped the work of planting the field by making the work more comfortable.

“What do you think about la Virgin de Pinto Lake?” I asked Ramiro Campos. “Are you surprised that there was a presentation there, so close to where we live?”

“Well, no,” he replied. “Mary goes everywhere.”  And he pointed to a random scattering of calendula weeds blooming along the drain ditch at the edge of the lettuce field where we were workingwith their cute, little, orange-yellow flowers glowing in the green grass.

I was puzzled.

Ramiro laughed. “The grandmas say that marigolds sprout along every path the Virgin takes.”

I laughed too. “She gets around!” I’d seen these so-called “marigolds” growing on disturbed ground on every farm I’d worked on all around California, usually popping up from late winter to early spring, and I recognized them as the wild cousins of the larger Calendulas that we often grew as edible flowers for the restaurant trade.

“It’s said that the Virgin walks the Earth at night and leaves gold coins in her wake for the poor to gather. “Mary’s ‘gold’ is easy to find, but hard to spend.”

Two years ago Starr and I visited friends in Texas who have a flower farm. https://www.texascolor.com/ Over the years Frank and Pamela Arnosky have created a giant shrine for the community at their Blue Barn farmstand with their magnificent fall marigold display. Some people come to their farm because they appreciate the bright autumn colors of marigold for seasonal bouquets, but other people come and get marigolds for their own Day of the Dead shrines that they erect at home. And still other people come for marigolds to be used as altar pieces and displays for traditional festivities that surround Balaram’s Presentation or Diwali. It seemed like a fun experiment to grow some marigolds for our own community back in Watsonville. Plus, I was aware that some organic farmers say that growing Tagetes marigolds, the highly scented, so-called “African marigolds,” can have beneficial effects for the soil because the plants release natural chemicals that discourage pathogens and harmful nematodes in the soil. Marigolds can play an important role in a good, organic, crop rotation scheme.

The marigolds after one week in the ground.

I read up on marigolds in the off-season and discovered that the heavy scent of the African marigold is known to repel mosquitos. We’ve got a swampy canyon on the farm below our house that can host mosquitos in a wet year, so planting an aromatic boundary to the field seemed like a good idea. And it was fun to learn that the “African marigold” is from Mexico. Before the Columbian exchange, the marigolds that were used in Indian and Buddhist religious ceremonies were the same small flowered, cool season, calendula type, Old World “marigolds” that were appreciated in European Catholic traditions. But once that Spanish treasure galleon shipped into Manila from San Blas, Mexico, the “East Indies” discovered that these “new” marigolds from the “West Indies” thrived in their warm, tropical conditions. And the “new world” marigolds were everything the old ones were, but bigger, brighter, and heavily perfumed. Frank Arnosky gave me the information on the best varieties of Tagetes marigold for sacramental purposes that come from seed companies in Thailand, and I was off and running.

The south facing field we have on our home ranch seemed the best place to situate a crop of flowers. The field is sheltered, flat and gently sloped, so it would be easy to work and the soil would drain well. The first step was to plant a cover crop in the fall ahead of the first rains. I chose to plant a blend of oats, vetch, winter peas and barley to cloak the soil from heavy winter rains. And rain it did! We stopped counting at around 60 inches. We did have some erosion from the unexpectedly heavy-and early- rain, but the young oats and barley kept most of the silt in the field and I was able to turn the cover crop under in late april. The next step was filling trays with seed. I wasn’t in a hurry; if you want to have a nice marigold crop in October and November you should plant it in the field no later than July 25th. I had my plants ready to go right on time.

The marigold field this morning.

I rototilled up the first curved bed with the tractor and laid out a single line of drip tape. The marigold field embraces the circular lavender labyrinth that Starr and I created, so no row was ever going to be straight. Once the tape was soaking the row I used the tape itself to measure out where I would put each plant. The high flow drip tape that I use has an emitter every six inches, so I could use the spreading stains of wet earth around each emitter to mark where to put the tiny seedling. I planted well over two thousand plants, one every 18 inches. When I’d finish one row I’d start another. It took me a number of days to finish, but I liked working in the fog at dawn because the cool temperatures were best for the tender, young plants. Now, after a thorough weeding, the plants look strong, happy and healthy. We’ve even got the first blooms showing on a trial bed I did a few weeks earlier than the main crop to test the vitality of the seeds.

Starr is drying some of the blooms. Here you see the three colors of “Chedi” marigolds.

When I first met Starr 5 years ago she was making tiny little shrines for people using Altoids Mint containers. Her shrines reminded me of similar tiny “to go” shrines I’d seen in little markets in Ecuador and Bolivia but they were uniquely American with a riot of different cultural elements. If you are a surfer she can make you an oceanic shrine, if you’re a Goddess worshipper she can make you a goddess shrine. If you are struggling in the ganja business she can make you a shrine that speaks to those concerns. And as we looked at the field we thought it would be interesting to make the entire field into a shrine of sorts, celebrating all the plants and creatures that make up a healthy, diverse, and beautiful farmscape. For her, it would be a way to mix her passion for gardening with her interest in making shrines and to do it on a scale that you could see from a plane. For me it was an opportunity to take what I’ve learned about growing plants on a commercial scale but to bend all the straight lines and make the effort as much about beauty as about productivity.

Come down and see what we’re creating when we do our Marigold U-Pick this year. Keep an eye on our newsletter and on the website for dates and details.

We don’t just grow marigolds either. Beside the milpas of corn, squash and beans that we have on the farm, and the beds of herbs we are also cultivating a wide range of cut flowers. My favorites are the zinnias, which happen to come from Mexico originally, just like the marigolds. Starr is partial to her collection of Dahlias, and we both love the sunflowers. Starr will be bringing bouquets to all of our farm pop ups. And speaking of which, we just added more tomatoes to this coming weekend pop up on Ross Road in Palo Alto. The warm weather is helping bring the crop on, late but welcome. Look to our sales page to see where inventories are at and order some before they’re all gone!

On the 30th of September we will be doing a pop up at Jett & Rose in Corralitos with our friends from Bella Farm Olive Oil. Details TBA.

The work never stops here, and we welcome volunteers. We can especially use help weeding the labyrinth since we use no herbicides. During the rose season it’s great to have some help “Dead-heading” the roses. Here’s the link to our volunteer signup. https://www.mariquita.com/friends-of-ladybugs-labyrinth/

Thanks, and we hope to see you soon.