Marigolds have a very distinctive – almost beer-y – fragrance, both from the flower or from broken leaves/stems. Apparently there are varieties with sweet flavoured leaves, but my experience has been they’re bitter – too bitter for salads even though they are edible. And the leaves are furry – urgh – I don’t hold with eating furry plants. The flowers are also edible and have been used as a substitute for saffron. I haven’t tried them myself, but I would expect colouring rice with the flowers would be pretty easy.

I’ve boiled up the flowers for dye – in this case I was dyeing calico fabric. I got muted yellows, which in the day was not what I wanted – I wanted the harsh bright colours that only synthetic dyes produce. I had a kind of homeopathic expectation of the resulting dye – if the flowers are day-glo orange or rescue yellow it stands to reason that … ah, the joys of youth and learning by doing. Like when my cousin came to stay and helped out by weeding the flower garden. Unfortunately, seeing the difference between weeds and plants that grew like weeds was not his strong suit, and so there were fewer calendulas that year. We didn’t have the heart to tell him, we just trusted some of the seed would come through and we’d have a crop again the following year. We did – they’re such good and reliable plants. And our cousin? Well, he was such a delight what could we say – and besides, what a great memory to keep.

The other good thing about calendulas is they almost always have a steady flow of foraging bees. I think they’re made for each other – neither are open for business if it starts to rain.

Manifesto
27. Every day pain is a sign of growing.
40. Every day give things a chance to work out.
43. Every day accept you will make mistakes. Learn from them. They are opportunities in disguise.