Garden markers

[winter unfazed]

Venetian blinds, as you probably know, break all the time. Eventually, the whole thing gets old and has to be thrown away.

I have found that they make good garden markers. When a piece breaks off, I save it for a garden marker. And when the whole thing is tuckered out, it can be cut into more markers than you'll ever need, unless you're a market gardener.

Why spend money for something you already have for free?

[Jim]

good idea. I've got a few set of blinds that I just took down.

[moonlilyhead]

That is a good idea. Thanks! I just cut up some yogurt cups into triangles for plant markers.

[daylilydude]

Here is another easy one that i'm trying this year. I got the idea from a fellow pepperhead named peppereater. No ink to fade just use an old ballpoint pen and press down .

[grunt]

If you have a local newspaper that still uses aluminum sheets for offset printing they are usually cheap (under a dollar) and easy to cut up into tags. Score the sheet with an awl, give it a couple of flexes, and you have a strip to cut into what ever lengths you want. Use a ticket punch to put a hole in the end, add some wire (fine wire like in telephone cables) and use one of those cheap electric engraving guns to write the name on. No way it can fade. One sheet will give you about 100 1"X3" tags.
Cheers
Dan

[hoosierheightsfarm]

I was just thinking of suggesting this myself.
What did you use to scribe with?

daylilydude said:

Here is another easy one that i'm trying this year. I got the idea from a fellow pepperhead named peppereater. No ink to fade just use an old ballpoint pen and press down .

[daylilydude]

That was the easy part all i done was lay the strip on an old rag and used an old ball point pen , one that didn't even have any ink in it and just wrote the type of plant.

hoosierheightsfarm said:

I was just thinking of suggesting this myself.
What did you use to scribe with?

daylilydude said:

Here is another easy one that i'm trying this year. I got the idea from a fellow pepperhead named peppereater. No ink to fade just use an old ballpoint pen and press down .

[sammyqc]

Thanks for that idea. Gonna try it this year. I had plastic garden markers that all faded within a week, so I tried taping over them, still didn't work.
Now I have an excuse to go buy more Rootbeer!!

[bunkie]

i use wooden popsicle sticks with a permanent marker. they take a long long time to fade, and hubby enjoys the popsicles!

[bluelacedredhead]

Indoors, I use the same as Bunkie, the wooden popsicle stick with Sharpie permanent marker.
Outdoors, I often use Wooden Paint Paddles (again with Sharpie marker) or a heavy duty green plastic marker that I can buy at the hardware store for $4/dz. They are large enough that I can write in big letters and be able to read what it says without finding my reading glasses.

[sammyqc]

Indoors, I use the popsicle stick too, but they fade so quickly in the outdoors.
Paint paddles, what a fantastic idea!!!!! I gotta start frequenting my local hardware stores, and enlisting others to help out. They usually give them out for free if you ask. I only really need 60 or so!

[americangardener]

I don't like the popsicle sticks for one main reason.... They rot!! Give em a couple weeks stuck into the soil and they'll turn to compost. That and the ink from the sharpies will usually fade before the stick itself turns so dark that you can't even read what it says anyways. Then indoors using em for flats.. there's that problem with mold growing on em..

They just dont' work for me..

But, i've found a nice alternative to the wooden sticks.. I go to the dollar store where they sell foam popsicle sticks. I think they call em craft sticks or something like that. But you can get 100 sticks for a buck. If you want they also have the larger tongue depresser size sticks also made of foam. Those i think are 50 for a buck. And for those of you who can get away with the wood sticks.. they also sell wooden ones at 200 for $1, just so you wouldn't have to eat so many popsicles.

Now, for a penny a piece i think these foam ones make great markers. They do tend to fade easier than the wooden ones.. but if you use a ball point pen instead of the sharpies.. they do last for most if not all the season. Then you can always rinse em off and re-use for another year. They also need to be stuck about half way into the soil just to keep em upright and straight... but then that's probably no worse than what you'd need to stick the wooden ones in. Just cuts down on the usable space for writing. That's why i perfer to use the larger size sticks... but with the different colors.. it is possible to use color coding systems by buying several different packages of sticks.

Other than that i use the venitian blinds for the rest of my row markers. I think i get about 175 or so 6 inch markers and 80 some 12 inch ones outta one blind. Again i got the problem with ink fading due to the UV rays & rain on those... but that's just a matter of getting a better sharpie type.

For me the Blinds are the best... Maybe i'll try permanently marking em with a dry ball point pen like you guys are doing with the pop cans. Might work!

Dave

[bluelacedredhead]

Foam popsicle sticks?? Never even heard of such a thing here.

Are they recyclable?

[bunkie]

i've never heard of them either. will definitely have to go to the Dollar Store next time we go to town.

for outise, i use old venetian blinds also. only trouble is they rust! i have hubby make a bunch of flat sticks out of old timber and use them as markers too.

[gardenhappy]

I love the pop can Idea!!! My markers in the garden keep fading away!!! I was going to cut my hubby's sheet metal for tags but this would be a lot easier on the hands if i can keep from cutting myself!!!! The popcycle sticks at the dollar store are plastic in several colors not really foam.We have been using those also but they fade here in zone 9 but in the house they work great!!