Sacramento Digs Gardening: Calendulas taste as good as they look

The hard-working calendula attracts good bugs. (Photos: Debbie Arrington)

This edible flower does a lot in the veggie garden

Some flowers do double duty in the vegetable garden. Besides attracting beneficial insects, they’re edible, too.

Calendulas are a beautiful example. Known in Europe as “pot marigolds,” calendulas are at the peak of bloom in April and early May. (What we call marigolds – species of Tagetes – are distant cousins in the aster family.)

Calendulas are pretty in a vase or on a

plate.

Calendulas’ bright yellow or orange blooms make a cheerful and attractive border around beds of green leafy vegetables. They don’t just look good; they bring in the good guys to help protect your garden from pests.

Their nectar feeds such pollinators as bees and butterflies, but the daisylike flowers also attract lady beetles, lacewings, hoverflies and other insects that help control aphids, thrips and more destructive pests.

The colorful petals add a bright note to any salad. They taste similar to arugula, slightly spicy with a little earthiness. They also can be used as decoration atop cakes and desserts or as a garnish for savory dishes and soup. Dried, the petals may be added to tea blends.

Medicinally, calendula is credited with a wide range of benefits, mostly to promote healing of sores and wounds. The ancient Greeks and Romans used native calendulas as medicinal herbs.

Best of all: Calendulas are very easy to grow. Maybe too easy; they self-sow year after year. Once established, this annual will be back again and again.

GENERAL GARDENING

An article about gardening.

Keywords:

seeds vegetable garden gardening Sacramento calendula summer vegetables pollinator plants pollinators flowers

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Food in My Back Yard Series

May 13: Your plants can tell you more than any calendar can

May 6: Maintain soil moisture with mulch for garden success

April 29: What's (already) wrong with my tomato plants?

April 22: Should you stock up on fertilizer? (Yes!)

April 15: Grow culinary herbs in containers

April 8: When to plant summer vegetables

April 1: Don't be fooled by these garden myths

March 25: Fertilizer tips: How to 'feed' your vegetables for healthy growth

March 18: Time to give vegetable seedlings some more space

March 11: Ways to win the fight against weeds

March 4: Potatoes from the garden

Feb. 25: Plant a fruit tree now -- for later

Feb. 18: How to squeeze more food into less space

Feb. 11: When to plant? Consider staggering your transplants

Feb. 4: Starting in seed starting

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Garden Checklist for week of May 18

Get outside early in the morning while temperatures are still cool – and get to work!

* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. Time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.

* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.

* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.

* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters. Transplant seedlings for many of the same flowers.

* Plant dahlia tubers.

* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.

* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.

* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.

* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.

* Are birds picking your fruit off trees before it’s ripe? Try hanging strips of aluminum foil on tree branches. The shiny, dangling strips help deter birds from making themselves at home.

* As spring-flowering shrubs finish blooming, give them a little pruning to shape them, removing old and dead wood. Lightly trim azaleas, fuchsias and marguerites for bushier plants.

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