After making a few clearer boards and suchlike for my beehives this winter I’ve ended up with quite a lot of small pieces of ply that I’ve kept because they’re actually quite decent quality and I’d prefer not to put them in the wood-burner or anything like that.
Much as I dislike using plastic, I’ve not found an entirely brilliant alternative to plastic plant labels as yet. Lolly sticks are a possibility that I might try, but I’m not sure they’ll stand up to being outdoors for very long. I therefore use the plastic ones, but try to re-use as many as possible from year to year. The writing on the labels isn’t always easy to clean off, so I just leave it on and use them for the same things each time.
When you have hundreds of labels however, finding the one you’re after is a bit of a pain. Earlier this year I split them into separate small plant pots alphabetically, so cabbage, calabrese and carrot labels are in a “C” pot, and pea, pepper and parsley seeds are in a “P” pot. That works ok and speeds up finding the right label, but the pots often fall over or get caught on things and it’s all a bit more awkward than I’d like.
So, today as I was walking past this bucket of ply offcuts for the umpteen-hundredth time, I thought “Hmmmm”. A few hours later, this was born.
I’m hoping it will do the job at keeping the labels organised and be more stable. We shall see.