Why labels matter more in winter sowing
Winter sown jugs sit outside for months. Snow, rain, wind and sun all work on the plastic and on whatever you wrote on it. By the time seedlings come up in spring, many jugs look alike, and the seedlings of different plants can look alike too.
Forgetting to label is one of the common mistakes gardeners list when they write about winter sowing. It is easy to think you will remember what went where. With a dozen jugs sown over several weeks, most people do not.
Label inside and outside
The usual advice is to put a label inside the jug with the plant name and the sowing date, and to write the same details on the outside as well. The inside label is protected from most of the weather. The outside writing is there so you can read the jug at a glance without opening it.
There is a second reason for the inside label. When the jug is opened in spring, the top often gets cut away or thrown out. If the name was only on the top, it goes with it.
- Inside: a plastic tag or a strip cut from a plastic container, pushed into the soil, with the plant name and sowing date.
- Outside: the plant name and date written on the side of the jug, on the lower half, where the jug will not be cut.
- Backup: a plant stake in the soil, or a note in your own log, in case a label goes missing.
Choose writing that survives the weather
Ordinary household markers are a common cause of lost labels. Gardeners report that they fade after months outdoors. For the outside of the jug, people usually recommend a permanent marker made for outdoor use, a paint pen, or a laundry marker.
Some gardeners report good results with pencil on plastic labels, because graphite does not fade the way ink can. Others say a silver metallic marker stayed readable for a long time. These are personal reports, not controlled tests, so do a quick check of your own: write on a spare piece of plastic, leave it outside, and see how it looks after a few weeks.
Whatever you pick, write clearly and press the details into one place. A short label that you can read is better than a long one that has faded.
Write on both sides of a plastic tag
Sun fades the side of a tag that faces it. The part pushed into the soil stays out of the light and fades the least. One way to use this is to write the same information twice on a tag, once near the top and once on the part that goes under the soil.
If you can, turn tags so the writing faces away from the strongest afternoon sun. Jugs that sit out until late summer see a lot more sun than jugs planted out in April.
What to write on each label
Keep the label short and the same every time. Use the same order on every jug so you can scan a row of them quickly.
- Plant name, and the variety if you grow more than one kind
- The date you sowed it
- A jug number, if you keep a log, so the label points to your notes
- Optional: a note such as hardy, needs cold, or sow early, if you want a reminder of how it should be handled in spring
Keep a log as a second copy
A label can still be lost, chewed, knocked over or bleached. A simple log is a second copy of the same facts. Give each jug a number, write the number on the jug, and record the plant, the sowing date, the date the first seedlings appeared and the date you planted out.
The log also helps next year. You can see which sowing dates worked, which seeds did poorly, and which jugs germinated first. A log is only useful if you keep it up, so fill it in at the time you sow, not weeks later.