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Have you thought of making your own?

• Message 1. 

  Posted by punpun (U14553477) on Saturday, 4th December 2010

  Hi all,
  Well again the weather has been a bit cold (freezing really but men dont cry or say things like freezing) And so it's a good thing to see what sorts of things you can do this sunday to help with the gardening when the weather is better for us to strip shirts off "breath in" and try to look good"
  
  Today i had to take "her in doors" out in the car to the shops for milk/bread Oh and bird food and so as i was risking life and limb driving in such conditions
  
  (Not the snow or ice, ) No the second driver who sits in the passenger seat,
  I thought i'd pop into the builders yard to get hold of some roofers battens,
  
  These are a really good buy for gardening projects and ive used them many times in the past for such things as making my own trellis work and sweat pea frames etc,
  
  But todays idea is to make a load and i do mean a load of plant markers for the garden ready for the spring,
  
  The cost of these plant markers in the garden centre's is really costly and you can only really use them for the job of marking plants locations and so ive decided to once again make my own to my own size.
  
  If anyone is thinking of hiding away in the workshop why not give this project ago.
  
  You'll need a few battens, black tar paint and any old flat paint such as under coat or wall paint you may have laying around, and a joiners leaded pencil
  thats a thick leaded pencil, a hand saw and lindseed oil.& varish
  
  I'll be the first to say it seems a lot of materials for such a project "But we're talking about making markers that'll last for years out in all weathers.
  
  All you do is decide on the size of marker you want to use ie 5inch long or 6 inch long etc etc,
  once you've cut your wood to length (I buy the thin battens so i dont need to split them but once cut to length they'll split very easily & then you'll have twice the amount markers)
  
  having cut to the size you want now cut a "V" shape at one end "this is for driving the marker into the ground,
  
  put the now cut wood into a jar of the tar paint so that you can stand the marker in it so it's about 3inch into the tar, leave it there until you"ve repeated this process approx 10 times and the jar is filling up with markers.
  
  Take the markers out and let them drip dry over the jar (when the dripping has stopped ) let the tar dry hard.
  
  The next job when these have dried hard is to fill a jar of lindseed oil high enough to soak the remaining untard wood.
  
  let the markers sit in the lindseed for a few hours so the wood is really sealed.
  Once again let the lindseeded wood drip dry and then leave the complete marker to dry out,
  
  your next job is to paint the undercoat paint (I like white or yellow colour for this job as i find it easy to read from a distance)
  paint two good coatings of the undercoat over the linseeded oil part of your marker and once it's completly dried you can then use the leaded pencil to name the marker or use the number system if you'd prefer to mark your plants in this way,
  
  and all thats left to do once the marker has the name/number of your plant on it is to apply a thin coat of varnish.
  
  You'll be amazed just how many of these markers you can make in no time "But" as ive said these will last you for years and cost very little and it's a job worth doing on a day when outside work is out of the question.
  
  I have the radio on or country music on the C.D and just forget about the weather.

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by yellowcat (U218155) on Sunday, 5th December 2010

  I made my own plant labels out of Foamalux a rigid foam PVC material.
  It was something that I used at work for making display boards and we had a lot of off cuts that it seemed a pity to throw out.
  Most of the offcuts were 3mm thick, the material is easily cut with a Stanley knife. I made a couple of designs in different sizes, the first was a simple pot label - a strip with a pointed end. The other design was for labelling rows in the veg patch, this was a rectangle with a narrow point to stick in the ground.
  I marked out the design on the Foamalux in pencil and carefully cut out using a Stanley knife and straight edge.
  The material can be written on with a soft pencil or chinagraph pencil, it is soft enough that very firm pressure with a ballpoint pen will push into the surface embossing it.

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• Message 3

  , in reply to message 2.

  Posted by punpun (U14553477) on Sunday, 5th December 2010

  Hi yellowcat,
  It sounds a great idea and im pleased your having ago at the D.I.Y. side of saving a fortune, well done.

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