Need a way to label your plants or rows in the garden? Next time that you are at a garage sale or thrift shop and see a white (or any pale color) vinyl venetian blind, snap it up.
A single standard venetian blind will give you hundreds of labels. Just cut the string holding the slats apart, then cut each slat in half with a pair of scissors (the vinyl cuts very easily). I store the slats in these half pieces, then when I need them in the garden I just take each half and cut into two pieces in a diagonal. There, now you have a perfect plant marker with a pointy end all ready to stick into the soil. Simply write the information on the slat with a permanent marker.
I bought a single blind two years ago and have tons left. The labels stayed outside all summer and winter in the elements and were still perfectly legible this spring (although I made all new-I put the planting dates on the labels last year)
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Fantastic suggestion, Jenn. But now I’m kicking myself for passing up those five-buck blinds at a yard sale a few weeks back.
This is one of the most clever ideas I’ve ever read! What I like is that the markers would be long enough to stick deep into the ground. Every year I try to make them, in any way, they seem to fall over.
Nick-sorry my tip was a week too late
I’m sure you’ll run into some more this summer though. It seems like folks are always replacing them. Blinds also seem to be one of those things that folks forget to put out, so you can always ask at yard sales if they have any in the house to sell.
M2F-one of the good things is you can make these as long as you want. I cut each slat from a standard sized window into 4 pieces, but you could always cut it into just 3 if you wanted.
You could probably do the same thing with the thin metal aluminum blinds, but you’d need something better than a pair of regular scissors to cut them. . .
There are shears especially made for metal. I think an old pair of kitchen shears might work, too!
How exciting! A great idea and it won’t cost me anything: we are replacing some (old, worn-out) blinds. Yay!