Recognising the plants

All these pots on our living room table, holding seeds and mud, trying to become plants. It's a good thing there are small markers there so I know what is coming up. Because one green leaf looks much like another green leaf to me. Especially right at the beginning.

I have done some re-planting now though and those small markers have not been used. Mainly because they are made of thick paper/thin cardboard. Paper and rain don't really mix. So, I planted the first couple of things and left them without a marker to indicate what was what. 

Which is okay if you have 2 pots outside with a total of four different plants. It becomes a different matter altogether when there are over a dozen large pots containing beans and carrots and whatever else I am aiming for. A solution was needed. 

Come in potato salad! Honestly, the potato salad saved the day. It could have been another type of salad just as easily, but this one was the first I got to. The potato salad was eaten quite a while ago, but I had kept the container (washed of course) and now it came in really handy.

All Dutch names of course

You take said potato salad container and start cutting it in strips. Make sure you make a nice sharp edge on one end as well: this will be used to plant the marker more easily. Take a black marker (isn't it annoying how it is all called the same?) and write the name of the vegetable or herb on the plastic marker. Stick in pot.

So, now I am not only growing my own veggies (which is good: less food miles), I am also recycling, because these markers can be used again and again. 

Photo taken last Sunday. More pots will follow...

In other news: I did buy the strawberry plants I wanted: five different types. These I stuck in two wicker baskets and hung on our fence (thank you Dad for the screws). The radishes, buckwheat, cabbages, dill, clover, Swiss chard and rocket have been rehomed already. As are the bell peppers and chamomile. So far the radishes are top of the class.