Making seed labels from pallet wood to replace plastic labels

Seed tray markers made from pallet wood

I suppose like many gardeners we would love to see the back of plastic in the garden.

Resawing a pallet wood offcut into 2mm strips

With lockdown and most places still shut in Wales, I had forgotten to order new plastic plant and see labels for this year's planting. I have done this automatically at the end of each season, getting everything in order for the following year. It never occured to me before that it might be easy enough to actually make the plant labels myself and do away with yet another plastic product from the veg garden. Then events took over and I found myself with seeds to sow and no plant labels left in the drawer.

The blade is stopped and the guard set high for the purpose of illustrating the cut, as two strips are cut into four.

For the labels I used a pallet rib which measured 25mm wide and using the band saw set at 2mm resawed this wood into thin strips, which I then cut in half. These were then pointed on the saw and sanded to a smooth finish with 120 grit paper.

Plant labels sanded and ready for use

I made 30 of these wooden plant labels and have used them in both the seed trays and the raised beds.
At the end of the season I will clean and store those that have survived the rigours of sun, wind and rain and those that have not will go in the kindling bin.  Next season it will be just an hour's work to make a new set.

I am gradually  phasing out as much plastic as possible in the garden. Once the seed trays and plugs have been used many times over and have cracked and broken they go to recycling. I am gradually replacing them with wooden seed trays, made from pallet wood.