Permanent Marker . . Ha!

[digitS']

I don't really like plastic in the garden but when trying to keep track of what I'm growing out there, I'll make an exception.

Those white plastic plant labels, especially if'n they're about 7" can come in real handy.

Oh sure, I used to drive a stake in the ground and "dangle" a seed envelope on it. Of course, I usually, tore off the wrong end of the envelope and had to hang it upside down. Then, with the first strong breeze, half of them were gone. Half of those that remained, melted the 1st time I turned on the sprinkler. The rest of them faded terribly in the sun and always switched places at night so that I wouldn't know which was the Raider cucumber and which, the Straight 8.

Grow very many varieties and everything gets jumbled - it could be the plants themselves that are sneaking around in the dark and not the labels.

Anyway, I remember the 1st time I set the white plastic ones out there. The variety names were carefully written on them with a permanent marker.

Ha! What a joke ! You could see the words start to fade in a couple of weeks. By harvest, when it really matters, you've got a white stake, no ID, and no idea which variety did outstandingly and which was fair-to-middling.


So, I bought a real, honest, Weatherproof Marking Pen . . . you can find them in most seed catalogs, garden centers, and a few other places. The writing will easily last a season and the letters can be read in October, and will say the same thing they did in April.

Throw them away at the end of the season? No, I'm too cheap for that . But, it took me years to discover that rubbing alcohol on a paper towel makes them as clean as they were when new. All it takes, rubbing alcohol . . .

Steve

 

[Bettacreek]

Hmm. I've been working with ideas. Mostly, a strip of paper with the variety stuffed into a 2x3" zippy bag works beautifully. Granted, I haven't tested it for long or in extreme conditions.

 

[wifezilla]

Sharpie marker at high altitude = unidentified plants in about a week.

Someone on here did some flattened tin can signs with the lettering punched through with a nail. I may do that. Plenty of cat food cans to work with.

 

[silkiechicken]

Working in the lab, sharpies are terrible. Ethanol everything and lose all the labels. Not good on expensive samples!

 

[vfem]

Ooh... hooray for rubbing alcohol. I have plant markers I can use again for my starts now.

I used wood with paint, marker, stain and sealant out in the garden... still wore down to hard to read in a few places after one season. I made some polyclay markers this year with my daughter for fun, we'll see how those work. :/

 

[mandieg4]

One year my mom found a bunch of silverware at a yard sale and engraved the plant names on them with an engraver tool. It was kinda fun seeing all those spoons, knives, and forks sticking up at the end of each row.

 

[patandchickens]

You can make any non-water-soluble marker, or even regular No. 2 pencil, last for at least 5 years outdoors just FINE if you simply remember to push the label INTO THE SOIL, with just the "top of its head" sticking up Obviously this is not useful if for some reason you need to be glancing at the label frequently, but for normal circumstances, where you just want to be able to check "someday" or "in case" or "next year when I've forgotten what that plant was", it works great.

Also you can pick up one of the aforementioned engraving tools at an auction or yard sale -- mine was part of a $1 box of misc hardware-and-tools junk -- and engrave on scraps of aluminum gutter cut into strips with the corners rounded off, or pieces of hard plastic cut into suitable strips (I use the lids off small catlitter buckets). The plastic will presumably eventually deteriorate if left in sunlight so I push it down with just its head showing; but the aluminum seems to be fine left exposed.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat, another "science person with deep hatred for sharpies as they always fail at the wrong time"

 

[nittygrittydirtdigger]

"Oh sure, I used to drive a stake in the ground and "dangle" a seed envelope on it."

To make seed envelopes "permanent", layer them between two pieces of clear contact paper. It's easy to do a bunch of these at a time, and then cut them apart into individual packets again. What I do is: lay out a strip of contact paper, sticky side up ( a little bit bigger than the seed packets) . Then put the seed packets, face side down, onto the contact paper. Put whatever you are using as a "post" (plastic plant label, popsicle stick, etc) onto the back of the seed packet, so that the top of the post is an inch or so below the top of the seed envelope, and the bottom of the post is long enough to place in the ground and still have enough sticking up above ground so that the seed packet is high enough to see without laying on your soil! Now place another strip of contact paper, sticky side down, onto the row of seed packets and posts. Firmly press the contact paper around whatever you are using as the posts, as well as onto the seed packets. Cut the row of seed packets apart, and there you go.

I use the contact paper that has one-inch grid marks on the backing paper, so it is really easy to make these to a uniform size. They look pretty sharp in the garden.

 

[lesa]

Didn't somebody do something really cute with stones, on here? I was so going to remember that!!

 

[ArcherB]

I use aluminum foil. I just fold it over several times about an inch wide and cut it so that it looks like sticks of gum. Using a ball point pen, I write down the type of tomato. It will write on the foil, but you know that the ink will wear off. What matters is the indention it makes.

I poke a hole in the end and hang them off the cages or plants themselves with a twist tie. They last for years!