Tales from an Amateur Gardener

Regular readers will remember that I was a little over enthusiastic in the numbers of courgettes I planted. We are still eating the ones I froze! So, I thought that a gardening tips page was probably pushing my credibility just a little too far...however, if any proper gardeners out there would like to send their tips in, we are happy to publish. Please remember our deadline is the 10th of the month so we are working almost a month ahead for each issue. I am rather hoping for some guidance from those more experienced gardeners out there! With my limitations in mind I decided to combine what I do know about, with my new enthusiasm and have a go at some plant markers. These can be really expensive online, but are quite cheap and simple to make. Although some were easier and had more visual impact than others. The first ones I experimented with were the wooden spoons. I thought these would be better for larger items as they stand up out the soil quite a long way. If you have old wooden spoons you could use those, or new ones are available quite cheaply online. The advantage of these is that you can draw (or trace) your picture onto the spoon in pencil and then fill the detail in with felt pens. I then added a coat of varnish to protect them from the weather. The potatoes look a little unappetising, but other than that I am quite pleased with how these turned out!

I tried something similar on the stones, but found it more difficult to get the detail in. Although there are some really lovely pictures of decorated stones online, I find it difficult to get any level of detail when I do it. You can use acrylic paints, but emulsion paint will do just as well, again once you have finished a coat of clear varnish will set the decoration and protect it from the weather.

Next I tried the pegs. I thought these would be quite easy and might look good on some of the plants in my greenhouse. I have decorated pegs in the past, but these were too narrow to do anything but write on. Although these work well for making the Easter bunnies from last month, I think if I was going to try and draw pictures or make patterns I would go for wider, more chunkier pegs.

The wine corks on forks are quite fun to look at, but it was really difficult to get a pen that would actually write on the corks, (a black biro gave the best results) and you have to have old forks you don’t mind sticking in the garden. Normally I would go to charity shops to source second hand cutlery, but obviously that is not possible in the current situation. The corks, on the other hand, are very easy and pleasant to source! The other thing you need to watch out for is how you position the cork on the prongs. I put mine a little too far around and it makes it a little more tricky to read the label. I think the last ones I tried are possibly my favourites, and certainly the cheapest! These are simply pieces of broken pot painted with emulsion paint. I used a sharpie to write the herb names on the labels. These are from a stack of tiny pots that I dropped and so don’t have a lot of space for more creativity. If you had larger pieces it would be quite simple to draw pictures of the plants in a similar way to the wooden spoons. Again I used a coat of clear varnish to protect the finished labels. I think once my herbs start to grow around these, they will look really great. All of these took me a few hours one rainy morning, and worked out much cheaper than buying a similar product online. They would also be great fun to do with children or grandchildren. If you have a go at any of them, perhaps you could send a picture along with your garden tips! Happy growing.