Kitchen Garden Forum

Something I have found VERY useful.

I'm growing my seedlings in unmarked jiffy pots, but in labeled lines.
They do occassionally get mixed up during watering (as I take them out of the lines). I've found growing 1 line of tomato, next to 1 line of peppers is very useful. As you can ID which line the seedlings came from due to their leaves! Not sure how many people are using labled lines, rather than pots, but hopefully this will help someone

There are some tomatoes that I'll only be able to ID once they fruit! (Newbie mistake!)

I label each individual plant, as I've tried lines & it is so easy to accidentally mix them up & most tomatoes look the same. The worst ones for looking similar is the brassicas when they are young.

It doesn't really matter how much I try to keep them labeled as soon as they hit the greenhouse there is trouble, as the cat just loves pulling out the labels & throwing them on the floor! Many a cauli in the cabbages when the mature on the plot.

What I have had some success with is using the little dissolving pots & writing on the side of the pot with permanent marker. It only works if you slightly under fill the pot with compost though, it is not permanent if the compost soaks through the pot.

Westi

I keep in little groups with one or two labels. As I've now got a selection of plastic pots that I use every year I put different varieties in different pots, red, black, green, round and square, tall and squat. Works a treat.

MW

Evening Stonecoloured, all ideas are useful, there will always be someone that will benifit from it.....so never be worried about posting them.

After all this time, husband has decided that I'm right to label everything, after his brassicas got mixed up. Not guilty milord...didn't touch 'em other than to water them. No way on this earth to distinguish one variety of cauliflower or tomato seedlings from another, in my opinion!
My memory isn't what it was so I label everything.... Guessing games are not my idea of fun!

LOVE the idea of coloured / shaped pots!

Will have to start lableling next time... Got a few rogue peppers/chillies in the tomato line... They're trying VERY hard to blend in.... but well... they're not tomatoes!

What are people using to label jiffy pots? (or is it easier to just use pots?)

I use the different colour/shape pot method also, for tomatoes and brassicas. Only have to label one of eAch that way.

Definitely labels for me. Trying to distinguish between Italian pointy peppers and Hungarian Wax chillies is virtually impossible until almost cropping time !

Hi Stonecoloured,
As a newbie may I suggest that you write your labels in pencil and forget all the wonderful pens you read about. All these pen written labels will fade if not totally disappear if subjected to sunlight. A pencil with good old fashioned Graphite will never fade and are very easily reused by using a rubber eraser and your labels last for years and years until they too become brittle from sunlight exposure.
Hope this helps.
JB.

I thought I would manage with one label per row of pots - then for two years running I ended up with chilles that were not at all what I expected !

Whist pencils probably are the longest lasting, they won't write well on all makes of label, some are too smooth. Certainly won't write on re-cycled shampoo bottle labels. I find that "sharpie" pens last a year, if you stick to the black ones; the colours fade away quite quickly. Sometimes they work perfectly, and fade away in almost exactly a year so that you don't have to clean off the labels for re-use

A soft leaded pencil and white labels for me....

The writing of Staedtler permanent marker pens, available in medium, fine and super fine at good stationery shops and used on white labels, lasts for years. If needed, it's easily removed by using Astonish or a similar abrasive cleaner, but I find that any plastic label goes brittle after a year or too, so is better replaced in any case.

I only use labels on pots, pens etc, mainly in the greenhouse or under netting cover, because they are often pulled out and scattered by mischievous birds. Fo the allotment, I write everything onto a plan, kept in the shed, but nothing is labelled.

Pencils and white labels for me too. If too shiny just dampen the label surface and then it will work better.

I have to agree with all the above - risk of mixing up unlabelled pots if not careful, value of using pencil on plastic labels, etc. Even so, only yesterday I sowed some pots and put them in lines in a seed tray. I get 15 square pots in a seed tray, so I multi-sowed six pots of an Italian spring onion I'm trying, separated by three pots of Little Gem lettuce, and then six pots of a Japanese spring onion. The two varieties of spring onion are both supposed to be long stemmed, so if I accidentally mix them up it will wreck the trial!