The seeds that I planted weren't calendula :(....different varieties and heights of marigolds. I think everyone must know about my "weed"! It's growing taller every day and looking less compact and less like a marigold. It's between 6"-8" tall just from the rain over nite. Once these weeds are gone, the sunshine can get to the real marigolds underneath. It will also look much more organized and less "weedy" when they start to fill in. Thanks again for your help! LC Grace.

Perhaps you should consider adding some nutritional support for you plants. Annuals can be heavy feeders, requiring plenty of available dissolved elements for flowering, cell division, sturdy stems, strong cell walls, and much more. Another factor in this situation could be the amount of sunlight that your marigolds receive. Anything less than many hours of full sun could result in weakened, spindly stems. It should go without saying that few plants will withstand torrential rains and extremely strong winds, especially soft topheavy plants such as marigolds.

In order to save seeds, I grow only one variety of each species of annual such as marigolds, and I select and save seeds from the ones that grow well or have a color or features that I like. So for marigolds, I select for bright saffron-orange color and pull out those that bloom brown, so now almost all that come up have the color I like. I haven't found the companion planting thing to work at all for repelling pests: pests go straight to the plant they like and don't mind what other plants are nearby. I do still plant polycultures, growing a mix of flowers, herbs and salad greens all around the garden next to other plants, but for other reasons. 1) Biodiversity makes a more resilient ecosystem, so the desirable pest predators and pollinators have something to eat and somewhere to stay at all different times of the season, and also if one crop fails, 15 others do fine. 2) The flowers, herbs and salad greens self-seed so I thin them out and occasionally transplant them to a better spot, but mostly let them grow, and they grow earlier than what I plant. 3) At least the herbs and salad greens tend to produce and be finished by the time big things like tomatoes or cucurbits need the space. Flowers like marigolds can be less accommodating, getting big and starting to bloom just when the major plants need the space, so I've been trying to plan and give them more space. The flowers I've been allowing to self-seed or keeping seed from are: cornflowers / bachelors buttons, marigolds, calendula, cosmos (I'm growing only a bicolor variety), snapdragons, edible chrysanthemums (I'm selecting for the bicolor white and yellow ones), and zinnias (selecting for red to purple ones), and Dracocephalum moldavica (also a culinary herb). The edibles I've been allowing to self seed or collecting seed from are: red butter lettuce, green leaf lettuce, rocket/arugula, red orach, mustard green, claytonia, dill, coriander/cilantro, summer savory, and probably others that I'm not thinking of at the moment. Basil hasn't self-seeded for me so I plant it, and parsley can be aggressive (deep roots) so I plant only one in a place where it can stay all year.

* No advantage in transplanting unless you have reason to think the plant is rootbound. If you think the soil/root mass can be lifted from the container intact (as a unit), go ahead and pot up into a slightly larger clay pot or a strainer/ colander/ pond basket of appropriate size. Pond basket: * Ultimately, full sun is best, and at this time of year a few hours of artificial light in the early morning or evening would be helpful. Do make sure the plant is acclimated to full sun, or it can suffer sunburn (photo-oxidation). Damage might not be insect-related - hard to tell. Your plant won't divert energy to defend itself. Defense chemicals represent the plant's weakest energy sink, so they always gets short shrift, and defense chemicals are a byproduct of the plant's metabolic processes and come free of charge in terms of energy outlay. * I've settled on 16 hrs on, 8 hours off for my plants under LEDs. If you keep the plant indoors you could go to 18/6 if the light isn't super bright and heat isn't an issue. There is such a thing as a photo-saturation point at which photosynthesis flatlines, so too much light isn't good. * Blooms are often triggered by treatment with gibberellins, ethylene, and other products, along with a reduction in N, but I'm not sure you should go that rout or rely on blooms to increase the weight of your plant. BTW, growth is measured by the increase in the dry weight of the plant after complete desiccation, otherwise, plants with fleshy parts would have a distinct advantage, unless it's all marigolds to marigolds. Too, a plant's level of vigor is a genetic trait, a measure of it's ability to resist strain, so in this contest, if a variety of species are in play, the plants which are genetically vigorous will have a distinct advantage. Vigor even varies from seed to seed of the same species. Vitality is the measure of how well plants are able to deal with the the cultural environs you're able to provide. * Skip the grow mat unless temps are below 65*. Too much heat is counter-productive - especially at night when root temps should lag day root temps by about 10*F. Good luck! Al