Strips of mini-blinds with the names of plants written in pencil works great. It's how I label plants in my flower beds. For my vegetables, I don't use labels in the garden but I do have everything mapped out on graph paper.

Rodney

I would love to hear how others mark their vegetable rows to keep track of what variety has been planted.
If you use the seed packet how do you protect it from the weather?
If you just use the name do you also use a map with more variety information etc?
thanks

Agree that mini blind strips work great if you can get them. If not I use wide strips cut from aluminum pop cans. Write on the inside of the strip with a pencil or press hard with a ball point pen and it is permanent. Cut the strip 1' to 1 1/2" wide and the full length of the can.

Dave

I use permanent marker on heavy white plastic knives to mark the rows and the varieties in the vegetable garden. I like that they are easy to see. Have also seen plastic spoons with names written in the bowl of the spoon. Started doing this after I had a large number of serving pieces left from a family reunion. Bought them in bulk at Costco.

one quart yogurt containers cut into strips.

I laminated the seed packets and stapled them to the wood on my raised beds, but they could be stapled to lath strips or craft sticks and put in the dirt. They did fade slightly but I wasn't bothered by it.

I do a couple different things, depending on what I'm planting and which bed I'm using.

My garlic beds are just straight mapped. Most of the rest of my beds start out with a map while I'm planning- but sometimes plans change. So since I make markers for my seed planting, I stick those out when I plant- either at the base if it's one big thing, or at the head of a row. I make them either out of recycled sour cream and cottage cheese containers cut up, or a plastic blind cut up.
And sometimes it's just knowing what my plants look like- for instance, if I plant a Long Island Cheese squash next to a zuchinni, they are obviously different enough that I don't need to label them or remember what's on the map.

Paint stirrers with magic marker

Nothing in the garden.

I draw a map for planning, and then make up a blank map for when I start planting, and in pencil (in case something fails and gets replanted with something else) I write what gets planted and the date.

That way, I have a record for each year, and it helps me with crop rotation as well. And I don't have markers getting broken, stepped on, and other wise strewn about the garden by my dog, wind, rainstorms, me, etc.

I'm lucky enough to have a wood carver hubby, who turns extra wood into garden markers! Cowboy, quail, flower, and more!
Before he started doing this, I used old vertical blinds and sharpie markers. They fade a bit, but do the trick! Nancy

Thank you these are great ideas!!

The woodcarving is what I plan to use. Lucky here in that I have a cnc router, did a few tests on some small branches cut in two and they look great. Plant name and date carved in, easy enough to make new ones when needed and the old ones will become compost.

Concur with Elisa_Z5... nothing in the garden. However, I use an Excel spreadsheet to keep a yearly garden record instead of using paper & pencil maps. The spreadsheet shows yearly layout plots of each current, past, and usually future spring & fall garden layouts..

I do use tags for labeling seed boxes... This year will use plastic tape to laminate labels onto plastic knives.

love the tape idea. Rain, wind and sun bleaching are a problem for me.
So often even the felt pen on the paint stick has worn off by fall.

For those who use the excel spreadsheet would you mind sharing a sample?

I save my seed..so I pretty much have my varieties whittled down to what grows well and tastes good here...so I just jab a broken stick into the ground at the start and stop of every row..when it comes up I know what it is. I also have a garden journal to remind me where I planted what so I can rotate my crops, I just make a simple map with the varietal name listed..then notes on how each thing did..amount of harvest, etc..

I am in the same camp as Peter1142, I use paint stirrers from the big box stores as they will let you have 5 or so per trip. I stock up through the winter! Sharpee lasts a full season for me and they weather very nicely as you can see in the picture.