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  • From: "Dave or Kathy Campbell" <dkcampbell AT southslope.net>
  • To: "'Market Farming'" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] marking pens that don't fade
  • Date: Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:33:15 -0600

I usually lurk, but maybe my marker experience could help here a little.  I worked as a geophysicist for USGS for nearly 30 years, including about a decade of summers in Alaska.  We needed to mark survey labels that you could read year to year, and so tried and rejected quite a few markers, including Sharpies.  The best I used were black Avery Marks-A-Lot permanent markers—legible after even several Alaskan winters.  Now I’m retired and farming, I still use them, marking 1”x2”x24” wooden stakes with my garlic, onion and potato variety names.  The stakes go at row ends, or when variety changes mid row (use 2 stakes, variety name facing the part of row that holds it).  At harvest, I pull up the stakes and put them on my drying racks with each variety.  Keeps varieties identified and separate!  These markings hold up for about 3 years, at which point I re-blacken the label and keep using the stakes.  Garlic goes in in the fall, remember, so my label marks (for garlic at least) survive Iowa winters.

I get my Avery markers from Staples.  But only black—other colors fade.

==davec   Tiffin IA   Zone 5

 

From: market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Beth Spaugh
Sent: Friday, December 11, 2009 8:32 AM
To: 'Market Farming'
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] marking pens that don't fade

 

Rivka, what size markers do you use, and where do you get them? Thank you.

 

Beth Spaugh

Rehoboth Homestead, Peru, NY

Farm Fresh Food Club CSA - http://rhomestead.com

Garden fresh vegetables, organically grown, and pastured chicken, duck, and geese

 

"How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used." - Wendell Berry

 

"Without power over our food, any notion of democracy is empty." - Frances Moore Lappe


From: market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Road's End Farm
Sent: Friday, December 11, 2009 12:00 AM
To: Market Farming
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] marking pens that don't fade

 


On Dec 10, 2009, at 2:03 PM, Wiediger, Alison wrote:

Even the black sharpies fade very quickly here - sometimes just in the 4-6 weeks it takes to go from seeding a flat to transplant.  Difference in the different parts of the country I'd guess.

 


The ones I posted a link to earlier aren't sharpies at all; you might give them a try. Of course you may have different conditions; they may hold up better for you -- but I also find that sharpies are useless even for transplant tray tags. I have some transplant tray tags written with the DP Industries "Garden Markers" that have been used repeatedly for years.

That said, I don't know if they'll hold up more than one season outside, though I do know they stay legible that long, at least this far north. For field use I prefer untreated wood tags, on the grounds that field tags often get broken or forgotten and the bits wind up tilled into the field; if they're untreated wood, I figure no harm is done if they do get tilled in.






-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale




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