Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi! Keep on recycling, folks! Many thanks for the idea of lolly sticks! Just a thought - it's fortunate for us that the Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Tudors, Victorians, etc. didn't use plastic - we'd be up to our necks in the stuff now, with no room to grow anything
Regards, Lyn

I found that lolly sticks can go mouldy as they stay damp in the pot/ground. So I am now a plastic label convert, with a pencil to write on them. Either use them again next year for the same crops (already labelled!) or rub out writing with a pencil eraser and re-label!

I use pencil and white plastic labels. Soem have holes in ends so can wire to a plant. Bought another 100(? 150) on ebay this year as last lot break after 10 or so years.
Clean every year with liquid Ajax or scouring powder or wire wool pan cleaner impregnated with soap: scratches = bad news.

I try every year to grow 2-3 different varieties of the same flowers (b lizzie, pelargonium etc) so need to identify each pot by itself. A real PIA when greenhouse is FULL as it is at present..

Along the lines of Sue's venetian blind, I used up an old curtain track that was no good for anything else, with pencil, and it worked really well. It was very good for spuds as the little markers got very quickly buried after earthing up.

When we used plastic markers for potatoes they got lost very quickly and I could never remember what was where. Now I use slats from an airing cupboard shelf which are rather better. Any suggestions for how to clean permanent marker off wood, or should I just keep sowing the same varieties each year?!
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Granny

Dear Granny, maybe you could paint the wood white, then just paint over any names you want to alter.
Not trying to make you extra work really.

We go through fizzy drinks cans (and OH drinks lager). Better to re-use than send for recycling, so we "top and tail" the can and make labels out of it. Spent biros have a use. Though you have to get the hang of writing backwards! S and N get me!

Good idea, OH. I could really go to town and paint pretty pictures. Keep me occupied in winter!!
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Granny

Granny, you could sand them down I suppose, although if you used them for many years they'll gradually get smaller

Chantal wrote:Granny, you could sand them down I suppose, although if you used them for many years they'll gradually get smaller

... and oh so smooth.

I use plastic with pencil on seed sown in pots / modules indoors .. but once planted out ( and that is when I lose the markers / they fade etc) I record what I planted where in my current planting map of the plot ... that way I can guarantee not to forget what was where ...an alternative approach !!

Chantal, even so, they'd probably 'see me out' (as the plumber cheerfully said when he recommended us getting a new boiler for the central heating!!)
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Granny

One of my allotment neighbours passed by a skip at a plastic window company...

there were many offcuts about and inch and a half wide and up to six feet in length....

he is now supplying us with these and they make super labels and can be cut as long or short as you like.

Yes, Weed, I use things like that and I cut up plastic bottles - vegiewash is ideal, and I use a Staedtler Lumocolour permanent marker pen, which stays legible for at least 2 years. I must confess to being a compulsive recycler.

mike