Label, Label, Label

[Lavender2]

How do you keep track of who is who in the garden, in the flats, in the pots?

I ran across a thread on TEG with some great info and ideas - Permanent Marker .. Ha!

I use old mini blinds cut into about 6" pieces and a Retractable permanent Sharpie (seems to work better than other sharpies). I write the name on the top and bottom, so the writing under the soil stays on for years. I also use these to mark my seedling flats and tomato plants.
This works very well and at the moment I have a never ending supply of mini blinds from my niece ... BUT ...

What do you use? Are there any new innovative products out there that may be worth trying?
Oh yeah. .. feel free to include what does NOT work .

 

[Ridgerunner]

How do you keep track of who is who in the garden, in the flats, in the pots?

I ran across a thread on TEG with some great info and ideas - Permanent Marker .. Ha!

I use old mini blinds cut into about 6" pieces and a Retractable permanent Sharpie (seems to work better than other sharpies). I write the name on the top and bottom, so the writing under the soil stays on for years. I also use these to mark my seedling flats and tomato plants.
This works very well and at the moment I have a never ending supply of mini blinds from my niece ... BUT ...

What do you use? Are there any new innovative products out there that may be worth trying?
Oh yeah. .. feel free to include what does NOT work .

How did you know where my expertise lies? Failure for sure.


When I start my seeds indoors, I use small plastic yogurt cups with the bottoms cut out on a bin of dirt. I write the info on the sides of those using a regular sharpie. As the plant grows instead of repotting I slide those yogurt cups up and fill in more soil. That works for me but I don’t start much indoors, mainly peppers and tomatoes.


For the garden, I cut a 2x4 into 16” lengths and rip those so I have strips 16” long, 1-1/2” wide and maybe 3/8” to ½” thick. I sand where I am going to write smooth and use a Sharpie. At the end of the season, those are pretty faded but you can still read them. For the following season, I sand off what I wrote. These normally last 2 to 3 years. I don’t always grow the same varieties every year, and I like to write on these stakes the date I planted some stuff.


Last summer I cut a plastic chicken feed bag into strips and used a Sharpie to write the tomato varieties on that to mark which variety is which. By the time my tomatoes get big, I can no longer easily read those stakes. I tied those at the top of my trellis so I could tell at a glance which was which. I also hoped them flopping in the wind would maybe scare off birds. The writing was still readable at the end of the season but what a failure. I used string to tie those on and they continually blew off with all that flapping in the wind. This year if I use that idea again, I’m tying them on with wire, not string. Bird damage was pretty minimal.

 

[thistlebloom]

What a great idea to write on the bottom of the label Lavender! I've not seen retractable Sharpies, I'll have to keep an eye out for them.

Ridge, I think your method of bottomless yogurt cups is excellent! The tomatoes and peppers must have great roots by the time you plant out, without the disruption of potting up.

Last year I used a labeling system similar to Ridges, I used wooden stakes, but I think his way of ripping a 2x4 down would be a lot more cost effective.
I noticed that my permanent marker had faded considerably by the end of the season, but was still legible if I squinted hard enough.

The little plastic stakes that work well in the flats are just awful to use in the garden. I always underestimate just how big those tiny little transplants are going to get and the tags get lost in all the growth so a lot of time is spent crawling around peering under foliage looking for name tags.

 

[HEChicken]

I've not labeled well in the past but am determined to do better this year. I started by creating a plan using PlanGarden. I'm still tweaking it but once I'm done and started planting outdoors, I'm not going to change it. My hope is that I will be able to consult the plan to tell what is where, even if my labeling system fades or blows away.

In the meantime….I bought some popsicle sticks to label my seed starts. I used a Sharpie to mark both sides of the popsicle stick so I can see it from either direction, if the tray is rotated. I made a bunch of little newspaper pots and put a popsicle stick in each pot rather than have one for the row. That way if I move pots around in the tray, I don't lose track of what is in each little pot.

I haven't completely decided yet how to label outdoors. I can transfer the popsicle sticks with each plant but they are pretty small and will get lost in the bigger plants quite easily. Yet in most places I won't have a complete row of any one thing either so marking the end posts of each row as viewed in my motivational avatar (not my garden - just a motivator) won't work. So I may be largely reliant on my plan. I can print it and keep it close by the garden in order to refer to it when necessary.

 

[thistlebloom]

Gee, HEChicken, I wish I could come up with a plan and stick with it. As it is, I make a rough draft of all the garden areas and roughly estimate what I want where, based loosely on what grew where last year.
Then I giddily start my seeds with no reference whatever as to if the number of plant X will fit in space Y.
Then I take my starts out to the garden areas and throw away the rough draft and plant where it seems best/seems to fit.
If I can then label everything so I can remember what it all is I consider it a brilliant success!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I generally start a rough plan, then wind up doing like Thistle, modify as I go. The major chunks wind up where I plan, like the corn will be on the north end this year, the beans close to the south, the early spring stuff will be in the middle close to my garlic. But I'm not sure where the few eggplant I grow will be. Some place will become apparent when I need it to.

The first year I started plant inside I used little pots and laid out a grid. Across the top was A-B-C-.... and down the side wad 1-2-3-.... I then had a separate sheet of paper telling me what A2 was or C4. When I put them outside on the porch to harden them off, my wife bumped into them, turned them over, and scattered them. So much for that plan.

Now I harden them off n the north side of the workshop where she never goes. But more important, the dogs and chickens can't get to them in that location either.

 

[HEChicken]

Gee, HEChicken, I wish I could come up with a plan and stick with it. As it is, I make a rough draft of all the garden areas and roughly estimate what I want where, based loosely on what grew where last year.
Then I giddily start my seeds with no reference whatever as to if the number of plant X will fit in space Y.
Then I take my starts out to the garden areas and throw away the rough draft and plant where it seems best/seems to fit.
If I can then label everything so I can remember what it all is I consider it a brilliant success!

Ah well, I haven't actually DONE it yet, so we'll see, eh? Its easy when its just at the concept stage. Though I am using the plan to determine how many seeds to start for each variety. I figured if I only start as many as I'll actually need, it will help me stick to my plan. I know not all seeds will germinate but if there's no sign of a sprout after 10-14 days, there will still be time to start a replacement. I'd rather do that than start extra to begin with, because I know I won't have the heart to let anything die that is trying to live

 

[buckabucka]

I use those plastic sticks (made for this purpose), along with any popsicle sticks I have around. With tomatoes, I write with a sharpie on the plastic cup.

In the garden, I don't label at all, but instead draw a garden map with all the varieties and date planted. I keep it posted on the refrigerator. Now that we have hoop houses, we can make a copy of the map and keep it right out in the garden, which is much easier than trying to memorize everything off the refrigerator map before heading out!

 

[Lavender2]

@Ridgerunner - 2 by 4's!, now that is serious!
My only trial with wood didn't work so well. I had the greatest idea for my herb garden - cedar shims with the names done all fancy with a wood burner, then sealed with spar varnish. They looked SO nice ... for about two years. Too much work just for looks, now I just taste 'em or smell 'em..

 

[Smart Red]

Here is an example of Tray #2 which contained tomato and pepper seeds. I labeled each tray with a number in the top left hand side. The first planting spots are row 1. Those are divided into a and b which should give me three plants of a-homestead and three plants of b-Jubilee. I labeled each tray and planting space for each of the seed varieties I started inside.

This year there were 12 trays with at least 120 different varieties that I started inside.

When I plant the seeds or plants, I draw the planting plan in my notebook. Bed #9 had two bush bean varieties planted to the south end on 5/26, three rows of Wades Giant Indian corn planted 6/7, seven cabbage and seven broccoli on 5/28, three varieties of tomato and three more bush bean varieties also 5/26.

I use plastic spoons, forks, and/or knives to label where each variety starts and stops. So there are four forks by the first two beans. One between the two kinds, one at the last row of Tene's, one at the last row of Yellow Pencil, and one fork between the varieties inside the bed. A fork at the beginning and end of the cabbage row. I continued on like that. While not to scale, it does show where each variety is growing.

I also have a binder of graph paper that I copy the bed information on to in a much larger, neater, to scale form. Once I plan for next year's rotation, those are no longer kept. It is true, I might not know what is planted where if I lose my garden notebook, but I've had it going for four years. It is good to show past successes and failures, planting dates, etc. and I do have the binder copy as a backup until the next spring.

It is not fancy or difficult, but it works for me. Labeling starts with A, B,or C and 1, 2, or 3 is so much easier than full names as long as I have a record of those names.