this is pretty cool. im similarly bad at remembering the names of stuff i plant, so having a reliable way to catalog and track would be sweeeeeeet.

Awesome idea and inspiration. I’ve been storing my old seed packets in a Rolodex with handwritten notes and have been thinking of ways to make it more scalable.

One question for the 3D printer crowd: PLA will probably fade and crack quickly-ish with sun exposure in a garden, any material selection ideas to extend the life without injecting a plastic into the ground next to veggies?

I’ve got some printed with PLA and some with PETG to see how they perform - I’m just going to give it some time and see what happens.

this was my thought too. less about the plastic getting into my veggies, but the longevity of the plastic case after frost/thaw cycles and uv exposure.

maybe you just pull them in the winter? i supposed that’s a no-brainer in a veggie garden at least.

strong point for those in temperate climates — then you could spend the winter devising ways to re-use the NFC tags and flash next year’s plantings ahead of time

So after a little more research, it looks like ASA would be the best filament for use outdoors. I really want to see how this PLA works out, though, because in my mind it'd be nice for a self-printed item if it'll last a year or so to just use PLA. They're relatively inexpensive and easy to print in PLA.

PLA only biodegrades fast in industrial facilities. People generally quote years to decades. I would imagine black is probably best for outdoors. I tend to just do everything in black since I'm just going to paint anything that will be seen anyway.

Very extreme heat will affect it, 90 degrees or so will probably not, I have had a painted all-PLA weather vane outside for a few months now, and it doesn't appear to have visually or functionally degraded at all.

One trick gardeners use is to just bury the tag, often the one that came from the store. maybe a eighth of an inch or just under some wood mulch- keeps it from uv and let’s you check if you’re desperate. You could have a method for locating like 4 inches from the plant stalk to the north.

Are we actually discussing burying plastic soon to be trash near plants so we can 'document' them? This is one of those times where I think someone solved the wrong problem.

I get it, but also plastic is fairly ubiquitous in gardening at this point. It's pretty hard to find plants that haven't spent months to years in plastic containers already. Plant labels are commonly plastic. Even soil and mulch come in plastic bags (if you buy in small, city landscape quantities).

All things in moderation.