Boy, was I ever wrong

Some time ago, I wrote a post saying that the marigolds were finishing.  I was wrong.  Very, very wrong.  They're still at it.   A few of the marigolds turned out to be dead when I cleaned up today, but mostly they're alive and well.  

The dead marigolds, when pulled up, had rectangular rootstocks, just as they had when I planted them in June.  I'm curious to know if the ones that survived are the ones I carefully slit the roots of before planting.  I know I didn't do it with all of them (too lazy), but I know I did do it with some.  At any rate, ALL of the dead marigolds had perfectly starter-pot-shaped bottoms.  I am suspicious.  I will try to learn the lesson from this about how to properly plant seedlings.  

The deadheading gave me some garden-style thrills, too.  The dried old flower heads burst open to reveal collections of seeds.  I wouldn't have recognized them if it hadn't been for my attempts to grow them indoors from seed.  The seeds are lovely little papery arrowheads, not anything like a vegetable seed.  I didn't save them because I remembered that they're fancy-pants hybrids and heaven only knows what the seeds will produce.  On the other hand, because they are marigolds and producing marigold-seed-shaped seeds, I spread a few of them around in the dirt.  Maybe they'll catch.