Cheap way to make plant labels?

savemoney

Plants labels arent that expensive, I think I got around 50 for around £1 at Wilkinsons

I tend to use pencil but have used permanent black marker

To remove permanent black marker to reuse I used turps on a old rag and remove it off

misstrella

We used old off cuts of wood from diy projects, cut into strips and wrote on them in permanent marker pens, they look really good and should weather ok... I'll let you know in a year!

rosie383

Some great ideas here. I did look for cheap labels but didn't see any.
I need biggish ones for the allotment, and it's so I know which varieties of tomatoes, potatoes etc I have planted, so I can see what does well.

LJM

i saw on gardeners world last week that they used wire wool to remove writing off labels to reuse.

Davesnave

LJM wrote: »

i saw on gardeners world last week that they used wire wool to remove writing off labels to reuse.

For health & safety reasons, Gardener's World probably didn't show a Stanley knife blade doing it in half the time and not leaving a grey residue!

Cheap labels - I buy mine by the thousand - last about 5 years in sunshine, then turn yellowish & snap easily. Good ones will be OK, even after 10 years and several re-writes.

descartesmum

Tesco sells lolly sticks but in their kiddie craft section. I've bought some there but then got really lucky when I was in the states and found some on sale last year.

Optimisticpair

I saved all my washing up liquid bottles to cut into strips and use a permanent marker pen.

kerleytops

I like the idea of making wooden ones but we have plenty as we cut up the slats of a plastic venetian blind to use as labels and I don't think I'll need to buy any ever again. I use any permanent marker pen or pencil and have used tippex to get more uses out of them and also have saved ones already written on to use on plants grown every year, just change the date.

foxgloves

I make all mine from old marge/soft cheese tubs and they are fine. I've also used lolly sticks, plastic cutlery ( I hate the waste of just chucking perfectly good stuff away) and old CDs. They wouldn't be to everyone's taste, but I write the name of the veg on them in thick marker pen then just stick them in the soil at the end of the row. I think they look quite funky, personally. A nice idea I once saw in a magazine (I haven't tried it as I live so far away from the sea!) was collecting the long razor shells and writing the plant names on those. They did look really nice & I guess they'd biodegrade & put some useful minerals into the soil too.

rosie383

I love the idea of using old CDs. I am going to hunt all the unused ones and can just imagine them shining away in the lottie!