Devin and I plant a vegetable garden every year and… every year we find ourselves very surprised because we forget what we planted where. This year, we decided to use Coca Cola bottles to help us mark out vegetables. We live in Atlanta, the home of Coca Cola, so I am excited to share this DIY garden plant marker project with you!
SUPPLIES FOR DIY GARDEN PLANT MARKERS
- Glass/tile drill bit (for bottom of bottle)
- Regular drill bit (for bottle cap)
- Drill
- White duct tape
- Scissors
- Yard flags
- Diet Coke “It’s Mine” bottles
- Gloves
FIND DIET COKE “IT’S MINE” BOTTLES
I went to Kroger and found these bottles. They are either found on a display that looks like this or are sometimes found in the beverage aisle. Something I thought was cute about the bottles is that they all have a unique design!
DRILL A HOLE IN THE BOTTLE CAP
To start off, drill a hole in the bottle cap of the bottle. Use a drill bit that is wide enough for the yard flag to fit into the bottle cap hole. I didn’t want my yard flag to easily fly out of the bottle if it became very windy and this helps secure the DIY garden plant marker.
DRILL A HOLE IN THE BOTTOM OF THE GLASS
Because I live in an area with a lot of mosquitoes, I found it very important to drill a hole in the bottom of the glass bottle so there would be an ability for the bottle to drain. You need gloves for this in case the bottle breaks and you also need to buy a glass/tile drill bit. However, if you live in an arid climate or one that isn’t so desirable for these nasty bugs then you are welcome to skip this step. Something I want to experiment with though, is placing citronella or some other type of bug repellent into the bottle without the hole to see if it actually helps.
PLACE A YARD FLAG INTO THE BOTTLE
This is by far the easiest step! Make sure your yard flag fits into the top of the bottle cap. Also, make sure you empty all of the coke out of the bottle or it might surprise and spray you! We might have shook the bottles up and chased each other around the yard with them spraying everywhere because we are super mature. The first bottle shot up and sprayed me which really surprised me, but we tried it again to see if it would work again…it didn’t. Third time was a charm though and the bottle sprayed me when I didn’t think it would anymore!
WRAP DUCT TAPE AROUND YARD FLAG
While you could take the yard flags off, I found them nice because I could easily wrap the duct tape around the flag and have a reference of where to cut. I decided to cut the plant markers into a banner shape, but you could leave yours straight or even cut the flag off.
BURY THE COCA COLA BOTTLES
I’m looking forward to planting our small plants in the garden now with their markers! This year we’ll actually be able to remember what we planted before the vegetables pop up ;).
I can already tell that these Coca Cola bottles are going to make my gardening experience a lot more fun. They add a lot more color to our garden beds and I plan on doing some more recycling projects like this in the future so our yard doesn’t look so dreary in the winter! In the mean time, I’m going to enjoy drinking my Diet Coke!