Forum: gardening.stackexchange.com
Tags: <plant-labels>
Title: How do I make plant labels for outdoors?
Question: I would like to put small plant labels in my garden so that I don't forget what exactly is sown where.  Can you suggest plant labels that:   are made from non-toxic materials  can have arbitrary text written/carved in them  are relatively easy to make  are made from materials easy to obtain  are made from materials that are durable outdoors for at least one growing season

Answers:
sents: text: Some ideas: Hang the empty seed packet over a stick shoved into the ground on the end of a row.
text: This will usually fade by the end of the season, but at that point the plants have grown large enough that you know what's what.
text: Use blank dog tags and a stamp set to create metal labels.
text: Write in pencil on the back of strips of scrap vinyl siding .
text: I've seen small wooden signs nailed to stakes that have the plant name painted on them.
text: Similarly, I've seen signs that appear to have been woodburned/carved.
text: If you want really cheap and easy, don't mind appearance much, and are willing to perhaps replace them halfway through the season, save your junk mail.
text: Cut envelopes open on the short end, write your label on the back with a sharpie and hang it over a stake as mentioned above for seed packets.
text: Write with a paint marker on an empty wine bottle , and invert the bottle over the end of a stick.
text: Carve the name into an flattened-out aluminum can .
text: Cut open cardboard milk cartons and write on the inside with a sharpie.
text: The plastic coating on the inside of the cardboard makes these very durable; they'll probably last a couple of seaons -- perhaps with a refresh on the marker.
text: Not a direct answer, but I was reminded by @Rob Forrest's suggestion that I should mention I've had good luck with planning my plantings so that I have a map of what is supposed to be where.
text: Of course nothing ever goes exactly to plan, so I make sure to update the map after reality strikes
text: and then I have a record of what is growing where.
answer_details: author: gardening.stackexchange.com/users/51/bstpierre
score: 10
sents: text: I slice up plastic containers/tubs, such as one-litre yogurt tubs, with ordinary scissors or kitchen shears, into strips about half an inch across and 6 inches long, and I write on them with a grease pencil.
text: Just the plant (eg lettuce, green beans) - the specific type etc are recorded in the garden book, not on the label.
text: I write in the top half of the strip and then just stick it in the ground.
text: I've had the same grease pencil for over 20 years.
text: I may need to replace it in the next decade or so.
text: I keep the tags in the fall and reuse them if I am planting the same stuff later (and most of us usually do plant the same core things all the time.)
text: Where I live, we can recycle those tubs, so any strips I don't want any more can go in the blue box.
text: As an extra bonus, some of them are written in the "brand new to writing" handwriting of then-small children (now grown), giving me a little nostalgia as I look through them to find the one I want, a bit like putting kindergarten-made ornaments on my xmas tree.
answer_details: author: gardening.stackexchange.com/users/754/Kate Gregory
score: 8
sents: text: One grower we buy from uses cheap PVC Venetian blinds.
text: You can cut the slats with scissors and they are virtually indestructible.
text: Label with grease pencil or indelible marker
text: and you are good to go.
text: This worked well for me as we had a few sets of these blinds in the garage and it was better than throwing them out.
answer_details: author: gardening.stackexchange.com/users/499/kevinsky
score: 7
sents: text: Used plastic forks and knives, save them up from lunch, then write on the black ones with silver sharpie and the white ones with black sharpie...
text: Re-using garbage is awesome.
answer_details: author: gardening.stackexchange.com/users/1158/Grady Player
score: 5
sents: text: I heard a great suggestion on Gardeners question time.
text: Instead of sticking in a label that invariably gets lost, fades so that you can't read it, or just looks plain ugly; why not take a photo of what you've planted and name that photo with the name of the plant.
text: You'll have a record of exactly whats there.
answer_details: author: gardening.stackexchange.com/users/1241/Rob Forrest
score: 5
sents: text: I used popsicle sticks and a sharpie for plant labels this year.
text: It worked really well for all of our seed starts.
text: If you want to save time, you can color code them so you don't have to write out the same thing dozens of times.
answer_details: author: gardening.stackexchange.com/users/6/Doresoom
score: 4
sents: text: If you have open fires in your home you're likely to have a supply of kindling/starters.
text: If so, you're either buying them or, better still, making your own out of old pallets/demolition timber.
text: They make great plant labels.
text: In my case I just rob from the kindling stack whenever I need labels.
text: Easy to write on with a Sharpie.
text: Return them to the kindling pile when they're old and worn and faded at the end of the season.
answer_details: author: gardening.stackexchange.com/users/99/Tea Drinker
score: 4

Summary of the answers:
Hang the empty seed packet over a stick in the ground. You can also use blank dog tags, scrap vinyl siding or a flattened-out aluminium can. 
The simplest idea is to hang the empty seed packet over a stick shoved into the ground on the end of a row or you could do the same with an envelope or a cut up milk carton. Some more interesting ideas include using  blank dog tags and a stamp set  to create metal labels, scraps of vinyl , flattened aluminium can or small wooden signs nailed to stakes. Or why not write with a paint marker on an empty wine bottle , and invert the bottle over the end of a stick.