I've tried many kinds of markers. The metal ones hurt when you're cutting herbs. The one that amuses me most is a white (cheap) leftover plastic knife (they come in sets with the forks and spoons). I put the cutting edge up and just write the name on it and by the end of the season you can either keep it as a reminder to buy it next year or leave it and use a Sharpie to mark it again next year. No big cost, no label machine.
Herb markers
Why not use the forks & spoons too? They make for interesting conversation. I use them for edible plants 'cause that's how I can tell where the garden sorrel is. Although I do like some Nasturtium in salads too.
~* Robin
Oh forks and spoons could certainly be used but a bit more difficult to write on. It would look funky and go with my freakish scarecrow. We all could use a little more humor in the garden.
I do keep a real knife in the pipe at the end of the compost bin. It adjoins the asparagus bed and it's so handy there.
Oh, I use a mailing label with a fine-line permanent marker & boxing tape over the stem of the fork & spoon. Do watch out for the crows. They are known plant marker stealers.
~* Robin
The miserable crows are the reason for the scarecrow. It didn't work but by then I had become used to dressing "her" up for the season.
Have you tried getting those cheap round aluminum cake pans at your local dollar store, and tying them up high & low with wide-red ribbons around your garden? I tied a red ribbon from one tree to the other to do it around the veggies. Old small christmas bells strung together and tin cans to clank too. I know it looks funny; but they're not scared of your girl there.
~* Robin
I've used popsicle sticks and plastic markers. I write on them with a Sharpy so that it won't wash off in the rain. If I want the marker to really stand out, I tie a piece of surveyers' tape on it.
Gee spectrum, I tie a piece of that curling ribbon to my beer opener. I've never had a beer in my life but for guests or to loosen a lid it comes in handy. With the curling ribbon I can always find it.
Maybe our soil (or the weather, some summers) is damp but the popsicle sticks rot out at the base and I think the squirrels play hide 'n seek with the tops.
My DH fills my Christmas stocking with little things for the garden - like the largest box of Sharpies I ever saw, in all colors. Even sharpies can't take a year if the southern sun gets to them. I have my master plan for every one of the 29 gardens but the herb area is more of a fun area.
Nature Walker: Oh yes. We tried the aluminum pie plates, the CD things we get in the mail and refuse to use, red Christmas ornaments, bells, you name it. Finally, in desperation, my husband made an arrangement of copper pipes and we put the netting over it: it stopped the crow's taste testing of ripe tomatoes. It looks lovely as it ages, too.
Pirl,
Could you post a picture right here of the copper pipe arrangement your husband made?
~~~~~
spectrum,
Popsicle sticks & tongue depressers fade in the sun here; unless coated.
~* Robin
ditto on the popsicle sticks. I made my kids eat a box of popsicles so I could have the sticks but the writing faded off. If I hadn't written a map of the garden when we were deciding where to plant stuff, I'd be lost by now as to what is what.
-Juli
Jill - that's funny about making your kids eat popsicles to get the sticks. I buy them in an old shop, a five and ten cent store, and use them temporarily until I make better ones from the cedar strips DH cuts up for me. Good girl for keeping those master plans! I'd be lost without mine. Names keep escaping me until 3 AM when I wake up saying 'Campanula Chettle Charm' and then drift off again.
Nature Walker - I took photos with my old digital. I've never tried to post a photo so have no idea what to do. I think I find the photo, save it to a file, then hit browse and somehow it will appear. That's the way I'll try it. If it doesn't work I will let you know. I'll do it right this minute.
Okay Juli - here goes! Remember it's my first time! These are the tomato cages and then the upper parts that we cover with mesh to thwart the crows.
Well, though I saved it to a file I couldn't get it to open up. Can you send me your email and I can send it that way?
oh, yes, having a labeled drawing is a very useful backup!
I just got some extreme sharpies -- the label says "industrial super permanent ink" -- packaging claimed resistance to heat, humidity, and UV light, so I'm hoping they won't fade as readily in the garden....
I cut up an old mini blind ($1 at the thrift shop) for labels this year. Nice to have some long ones to stick in by my peppers & tomatoes; hopefully I won't have to root around trying to find them. I like the metal T-shaped markers for perennials & herbs, though. The copper ones can be "embossed" with a pen (press down hard with something soft like a magazine underneath), which isn't the easiest to read, but it's pretty permanent. The best thing I've found for writing on the silver colored ones seems to be a good old #2 pencil, but that does tend to fade away after a couple of years.
I've been contemplating a labelmaker, too.... there was a thread somewhere that seemed to say the DYMO LetraTag with the blue or yellow plastic tape may be the way to go.... at $25 - $30, they're not that expensive, although I can probably run through the tape ($6 per 13 feet) faster than I think!
Thank you for mentioning the thrift shop! We threw out the old mini blinds about a week before I got onto Dave's. Woe is I.
I don't like the metal markers. They're great for other people or guests so they know the name of the plant but I always manage to cut myself and after four cuts in one day people begin to think I must be self mutilating!
I have the Dymo label maker and it's still a lot more work than writing on 10" pieces of 2" wide cedar and banging them into the ground to spoil the squirrels fun of digging them up. With Dymo and a few cocktails you can come up with the darndest names: Butterscotch Uffles instead of Ruffles and Moonlight Ist instead of Mist. After you do twenty or thirty labels you wish the tape would run out. I have them for many daylilies, on the metal holders, and that's the garden DH cleans up and he manages to stay mutilation free. They do fade in time and the metal gets banged up. With the wood you have to redo the labels but they're great for tripping over so you can sit and read a book for a day and enjoy just looking at the garden.
Pirl, go to the Test Forum and try to upload the pic again there. It took me a whole morning to figure it out and I've not done it again since. But you can play around there with it. I can't remember where I found directions how to upload. Anybody?
My kids are used to mom's "crazy missions". I made them eat a whole box of popsicles another time cuz I needed the sticks to make hand puppet type things for a presentation that I was doing in class. Right now we are drinking liter soda cuz I need the liter soda bottles to protect my garden veggies from the wind. If I didn't already have pie tins they'd be eating pies too.
"industrial super permanent ink" WOW!
-Juli
Well I need blue vodka bottles for a copper tree I want for the garden: how would the kids like to help out! Maybe I'll settle for bottles from Thunderbird! You California gals probably never heard of it.
I did the hand puppet thing for my granddaughter years ago and was into finger self mutilation! I even made her a puppet stage from a huge display box at the drug store. Now she's burning CD's and I'm nursing a miserable pull in a muscle in my leg. Hey, maybe I could start on one of those vodka bottles. . . .
My favorite plant markers are the stepping stones I made a few years ago with a Poetry Stones kit. The kit includes letters to spell out names and "stone" forms in squares, rectangles, etc. I think it also came with some cement and powdered coloring, but you can get these at a home supply place.
http://www.magneticpoetry.com/stones/pstone.html
I made mine a few years ago for the herbs I knew I would grow each year... I haven't gotten around to making up new stones for the herbs I've added since then. I'd also like to make some for my fruit trees and blueberries. I'm too busy weeding and keeping up with more urgent things in the garden at the moment.
Great idea portiaw! I've also been using large scallop shells since the water is just across the street and we have so many beaches nearby.
We collected a bunch of nice white, smooth rocks last fall and I used a new pen, a calligraphy ink pen, from my paint store, to write the name of each Japanese iris on and put in the garden. It's a much softer look than metal and I always have the master plan in case the squirrels start throwing rocks at each other during the winter.
Oops wrong place. But anyway here's the link for the test forum Pirl: Test Discussion Forum: http://davesgarden.com/forums/f/test
~* Robin
This message was edited May 16, 2005 7:46 PM
I like the idea of making cement "stone" markers, as I could embed a landscape staple into each "stone" in an attempt to anchor them next to their respective plants...... hmmm.....