Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Chatting => Frugal Living => Topic started by: sclarke624 on February 11, 2009, 16:50
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The Asda stirring sticks you have in the cafe at Asda make great plant labels. Of course I am talking about the one that came with my drink that I took home and washed!!!
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i just cut up my plastic milk 'bottles' into strips and use permanent marker :)
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I use a 'permanent' marker on proper shop bought plant labels (only bought when 50 - 75% off at Wilkos), then erase the writing using the cheapest thin bleach available(approx 15p/litre) which is then re-used for household purposes (and that bleach may have been used for cleaning demijons first).
So I've got a couple of hundred that I use year after year.
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I have replaced the icecream with ice lollies - mini-milks for the kids. This means they get a treat and I get a free stick with every lolly!
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Last year I used coloured lollypop sticks. (They came from Woolies in a craft selection for £1) It worked well, I made a list and by different pots and sticks I knew what everything was.
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I use a 'permanent' marker on proper shop bought plant labels (only bought when 50 - 75% off at Wilkos), then erase the writing using the cheapest thin bleach available(approx 15p/litre) which is then re-used for household purposes (and that bleach may have been used for cleaning demijons first).
So I've got a couple of hundred that I use year after year.
Bleach to clean last year's used labels is a simple and brilliant idea!
Thanks - I am going to remember that one - so simple I don't know why I didn't think of it :wacko:
Your suggestion appreciated! :)
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Write on them with a good old fashioned pencil. Easy to erase and a bit more environmentally friendly.
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Write on them with a good old fashioned pencil. Easy to erase and a bit more environmentally friendly.
You're absoblutely right there - and bleach will not clean pencil writing off a plant label! [1]
But I have problems finding "a good old fashioned pencil" these days that doesn't fade away when used outdoors.
My dodgy eyesight also means I wouldn't be able to see pencil writing on a label at ground level at the plot.
And when I bleach my labels, I use bleach that has already been used several times for cleaning heavily encrusted demijohns and is then subsequentley used for bog standard uses.
[1] I know this because I use pencils for marking all the labels I use in my greenhouse.
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You're absoblutely right there - and bleach will not clean pencil writing off a plant label! [1]
Have you never heard of pencil erasers?
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Ah.........but bleach would kill off all those nasty little invisible microbiological little things that might have survived in last years compost and infected the labels.........and grow even bigger in this years compost.... and cause the seedlings to keel over......:unsure: perhaps?
No? :blink:
OK......I'll try the pencil and rubber ;)
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Ah.........but bleach would kill off all those nasty little invisible microbiological little things that might have survived in last years compost and infected the labels.........and grow even bigger in this years compost.... and cause the seedlings to keel over......:unsure: perhaps?
No? :blink:
OK......I'll try the pencil and rubber ;)
or cream cleaner?
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Many moons ago my uncle went to teach in the US .... and asked for a rubber from stationary stores. He got a very funny look. ???
Erm ... it means something else there ... :ohmy: as was explained by the school secretary .... :blush:
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OK.... no "rubbers". [I shgould have known better]:ohmy:....but I like the cream-cleaner idea!! 8)
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If you ask for durex in Australia I believe you will get sellotape. :ohmy: :lol:
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If you ask for durex in Australia I believe you will get sellotape. :ohmy: :lol:
Sounds too sticky too me!
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I use china markers for my labels- cleans off easilywhen you do the rounds with the jeyes fluid.
We used to use them when i worked at burger king for marking the wrappers, and i'm afraid i might have found a couple in my pocket when i left.
quite accidentally, i promise.
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You're absoblutely right there - and bleach will not clean pencil writing off a plant label! [1]
Have you never heard of pencil erasers?
Yes, but I'm using/re-using approx. 400 of them:
(http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w264/DavidsWine/labels.jpg)
(the other 100 are in use/awaiting a clean), I simply write in permanent marker over the initial pencil writing, and if it re-appears after bleaching, do that again and again until it's worn off.
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Hi, I clean off old writing with steel wool or dry Brillo pads, only the odd label needs wetting,then rinse the lot, and leave to dry. Good job for a wet day, or an excuse for a sit down. I use my labels over and over again :happy: :) :) :)
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Why do they make the plant labels too big for propogators ?
I had to cut some down recently.
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Funny you should say that Hindy, I bought some shorter ones in Wilkinsons today for just that purpose!
Elaine
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If you ask for durex in Australia I believe you will get sellotape. :ohmy: :lol:
Sounds too sticky too me!
I used supposedly permanent marker and it has already faded to light purple :tongue2: Oh well :wub:
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"Write on them with a good old fashioned pencil. Easy to erase and a bit more environmentally friendly."
Been doing that for many a year, but the labels I bought last year were so shiny that a pencil wouldn't work :( So I wrote on them with permanent marker - without realising that would fade to nothing with a few weeks of sunshine :(
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Kristen Tesco plantlabels are easy to write on with pencil and they are cheap. Go end of season but but not too late or their gardening stuff is away and they are even cheaper. Been there with the shiny ones. Asda are quite cheap as well will have to check how shiny theres are next timeI want to travel all theway to Havant as our council (Arun) in there wisdom were too snobby for an asda's to be allowed here.
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Also helps if you write the correct name on them in the first place :lol: :lol: Thought those chillis came up quick :unsure: and looked odd -- fennel :ohmy: :ohmy:
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or put a label in with nothing written on it.
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or put a label in with nothing written on it.
hahahahah Surprise :D
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If you want really permanent labels for marking garden plants then plastic will never do, eventually it goes brittle and breaks off.
The Victorians used to use lead stamped with letters for fruit trees and I have sen some of these, well over 100 years old and still legible.
I am using some thin aluminium sheet labels, written in pencil - they will probably outlast the plants and me!