I garden with kids. My 7 year old is a dream garden helper, when I can pry her out of her books and get her to help. (I have the nicest problems, truly.) She can thin seedlings, pick peas, weed and chicken wrangle. I really don’t know what I’d do without her.
My daughter was having a little trouble with the fine-line paintbrush, so we brought out the infamous colored Sharpies for a few as well. The Sharpie-labeled rocks looked good initially but have already faded considerably. I’ll be painting over them with acrylic when I get some free time.
I love this rock idea! I don't have little ones anymore, but it just looks so super cute!
I use old cut-up mini-blinds. They were left by the previous owner of our house and could not be more ugly as window coverings, however they are perfect as plant markers. So far the sharpie has not faded so much as to be unreadable, but it can also be removed with alcohol and reused, so that's a nice feature. I love not having to purchase plant markers, it always felt like such a silly thing on which to spend money.
If you like this idea but don't have any ugly mini-blinds hanging around, you could probably post a WANTED message on your local freecycle and have some in no time.
I pretty much gave up. She is 3.5 now. I will try again next year. She "collects" them for her garden, her nature pile, her room…whatever. So now, I don't label a thing and hope for the best.
Which usually leads me to "Hmm, those look like brassicas coming up. Wonder what it will be?"
Honestly, I'm just happy that she loves to eat from the garden and she has stopped picking unripe berries to feed the chickens =) Next year= labels!
Brilliant! I might use this idea for my landscape plants, most of which I inherited and am slowly learning what they all are. I've been looking for a simple way to label them so I can remember their names and also so my husband knows they are 'keeper' plants and not to be killed. 😛
I don't use labels except on my tomato plants. For those, this year I tried a hole punch and zip ties – attaching the tag to the cage instead of poking it into the ground. I like this a lot so far – no searching through all the tomato foliage to figure out which variety I'm picking.
For everything else, I keep it written down in a book where I draw my garden plans every year. Some things get switched around, but not so much that I can't figure out what I planted.
What do you mean "mark" plants? I prefer to make a detailed graph paper plan, and then completely disregard it, putting plants in wherever and whenever I have the time, and then be completely confused later. Like this years 'is it a squash or a melon' debacle.
Seriously though. That is one wicked cute garden sprite. Holy crap. I think I'd let him do anything if I could just pinch his fat shoulder once.
Putting labels in your plants is actually good. It'll help your children know the names of the plants you put in your garden.
wildlife removal
I like the rock idea. I’ve been using popsicle sticks but they rot. This sounds like an excellent alternative and fun.