I always think of my mother-in-law's garden when I see marigolds. She had an abundance of them which arose spontaneously each year, and I can remember my then-two-year-old son being fascinated by them. I haven't done so well with them here...this was the only plant that survived the summer out of what was intended to be a border of them. I've been collecting the seeds as the flowers dry up, and sprinkling them on the drip emitter lines in different places. Quite a few have sprouted, and I hope to have better luck with them this year. You can also see nasturtiums coming up, which is what we had along the border prior to the marigolds. Now that the weather has cooled, they are coming up all over the place. So are weeds, unfortunately. You can see one of those in the picture, too. I didn't plant the nasturtiums, or the weeds for that matter; they came from seeds dropped last spring.
So far, we've been pleased with the new drip system. In most beds, we've laid it out in a grid with lines about a foot apart, and each line has a 1 gph drip emitters spaced a foot apart. We plant seeds right under the emitters in a variation of the "square foot gardening" method. This seems to be more efficient and effective in getting water to the plants where they need it than the minisprayers we had previously. In some of the raised beds where I want a flower border, we have also run 1/2 gph drip lines with 6 inch spacing along the edges.
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