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Vintage Silver Spoon Garden Markers

Vintage or antique silver spoons make pretty garden markers.

Toss out those white plastic garden markers ! There's a much nicer way to mark your vegetables and herbs. 

Vintage spoons make gorgeous, durable markers to use year after year.


My grandmother was my muse, my mentor and my inspiration to raise chickens.  Growing up across the street from my grandparent's chicken farm, I believe I have chicken keeping in my blood.

 

I have many happy childhood memories of watching my grandfather feed their chickens or load up their station wagon with flats of fresh eggs, ready to be delivered to local restaurants. 

I remember picking mint with my grandmother from her garden to make her famous mint jelly. 

Sadly my grandmother died last January at the age of 99. But in addition to leaving me with a lifetime of memories and a love of farm living, she left me her silver spoon collection.

The spoons sat on the dining room table all of last winter and spring.  My grandmother had also left me a wooden rack to display them on, but that didn't interest me.  

I knew I should pack them away for safe keeping at least, knowing they were antique and silver.  But my grandmother was practical and thrifty, as New Englanders tend to be. She was active and lived on her own right up until the end.

She gardened, grew flowers and tended to her yard, sewed and make braided rugs, fed the birds and had a cat - although she had given up the chickens years before.  I knew I had to do something special with the spoons.  I wouldn't be honoring her memory by not USING them.


Vintage Silver Spoon Garden Markers

That's where Wooden Hive came in.  I found Kerri's shop on Etsy. She hand hammers vintage silverware into garden markers with herb and vegetable names lettered on them.  Perfect ! Something practical and useful.  

I managed to convince the shop owner, Kerri, to let me send her my grandmother's spoon collection (although she generally supplies the spoons she sells) and a list of herb and vegetable names I wanted on the spoons.  After explaining my story, she readily agreed. 

As you can see, the spoons turned out so beautiful. I almost didn't want to stick them into the dirt !  But once I got them in the garden, they looked so great, and I knew it was the right decision.

Of course, if you're handy you could bang your spoons flat yourself and then do the lettering. I myself didn't have the tools, although it probably would have been a good investment considering how many spoons I had done! 



















I love my spoon markers! I used the markers in our garden last summer and as I pulled weeds and harvested vegetables and herbs, I felt my grandmother right there with me. Smiling down because I had the audacity to use her silver spoon collection in the garden!

As I gathered a basket of vegetables to feed the chickens or cut herbs for their nesting boxes, I realized this was the perfect way to use the spoons.  I had managed to combine the memory of my grandmother, gardening and chickens...three of my favorite things.

I will treasure my silver spoon markers for years to come. 


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