Have you ever had trouble identifying plants in your garden, or forgotten what you planted in a bed? Plant markers help students and adults alike with vegetable identification. Rather than using the small plastic markers that can fall out or wash off, consider making larger, more permanent signs to make your schoolyard garden more informative and inviting!
Having your students create garden signs is a great craft activity to do indoors during the winter, before planting your spring garden. As you discuss the upcoming growing season with your students, make a list of every vegetable that they would like to plant, and have the students make one or two signs for each plant variety.
Your students can make garden signs in a variety of ways, depending on the size of your garden and the materials you have on hand:
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Wooden flag garden signs can be made with string, small pieces of wood, tall sticks or bamboo, and paint or markers. Make sure that the sticks are tall enough to see over your full-grown plants. Draw or write on the small pieces of wood (roughly 1’x4’). Take about 20 inches of string and wrap one end of the small sign around the top of the stick, criss-crossing the string so that the sign stays in place.
- Make colorful stone vegetable markers using smooth stones or jagged rocks with a flat surface. Use acrylic paint to color the rocks and write on the vegetable name and, if available, use clear coat paint to protect your art from the elements! Once you’ve painted and drawn your vegetable of choice on the stone, place it in the soil near the vegetable plant.
- For a simple, colorful addition to the garden, color some paint sticks and write on the vegetable names. Check out your local hardware store for low-cost or donated paint sticks. You can easily stick these in the ground and use them throughout the growing season.
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Colorful stone vegetable markers Create a plastic garden sign by decorating and laminating a piece of paper and attaching it to a tall stick to place in your garden. In addition to writing the name of the vegetable plant, consider adding additional drawings and information to the sign, like harvesting dates and tips, facts about the plant, the plant’s name in Spanish, and more!
For more garden craft ideas to get your students excited about gardening, read other posts on the Schoolyard Gardens blog.
