I've had several incarnations over the years. When I first began piddling with crosses, I just used different colors of twist ties from bread bags, and folded the ends up differently for further designation, and recorded each with their corresponding cross in a note book. That only lasted one season: the twist tie colors faded in the sun, and by fall it was difficult to tell apart the white or beige or yellow, or the blue or green or red. Then I had the idea of marking same color ties with different colored markers in the fashion of how transistors used to be marked for their number of ohms. That never made it past the drawing board, since the colors would have faded in the sun. Next I had short lengths of mini blinds that I punched holes in, wrote the necessary info on them with pencil and twist tied them to the corresponding pod stem.
This was still way too tedious, especially as the number of crosses kept growing each year. I mentioned my dilemma one day to my brother-in-law, and he gave me these.
They are like the twist ties you see at co-ops or grocery stores where you bag your own bulk foods, like beans or grains.
They came in little "books" and he had quite a few. He said they didn't work for his intended use, so I took the lot. But now I'm near the end of them, and I'm going to have to source a new supply. At first I used both pencil and sharpie on them, and they both work equally well, since you only need it to last for a few months.
