Cempasuchil (Tagetes erecta)

Cempasuchil (Tagetes erecta): A couple of years ago, while we were toasting with mezcal with chef Lina Jimenez, she told us about the difficulty in finding "real" Cempasuchil for the Day of the Dead. This very important Mexican holiday requires this flower, a variety of the Tagetes erecta species. She told us she had tried various seeds in her garden in Roma—one labeled Hawaii, one found in a Chinese grocery store, and others. But nothing, none had the scent or the distinctive shape, and they weren't "esponjosos" like those from her home country. A biologist friend of ours from Cuernavaca, the capital of the state of Morelos, brought us some seeds. In the video on this page, you can see the happiness in Lina's eyes when she came to pick the flowers at our farm. Now we grow them for her, and they adorn her restaurant in Roma every Day of the Dead.
In the field: the various species of Tagetes are used along with many vegetables for the nematicidal power of the roots, furthermore the long flowering attracts pronums (pollinators) and other beneficial insects.
To have it on All Souls' Day, you need to sow it in August. It will flower in mid-October, about 70 days after sowing.
"Happy Day of the Dead!"