YESTERDAY WAS DEVOTED TO TRANSPLANTING fall cabbages, broccoli and brussels sprouts into the garden. The weather was blessedly cool and cloudy to help prevent transplant shock.

My biggest challenge was how to outsmart or out think the young, fledged crows that have pulled out the plant and row tags in the vegetable garden. Once the tags are pulled out they seem to leave them alone. Hmmmm…..time to put on the thinking cap.

I have been making use of metal hangers for years to make staking pins for the soaker hoses. I cut away each side from the curved hook and then have two long ‘hairpins’. From that use, came this idea.

Step one, pull away the paper tube.

Step two, cut the wire from each side of curved hook for two new pieces and straighten out the little crimp with needle nose pliers.

Step three, using a large pair of needle nose pliers, pull the uncrimped end into a loop. Fold the cut end up into a hairpin shape to add resistance to pulling (I hope) out of the ground. Using a hole punch, punch a hole in tag, add plant name and slip over the looped end. (I cut up used plastic yogurt containers for tags.)

Step four, plunge the hairpin end into the soil so the tag lays kind of flat on top of the soil and hope to heck you have outsmarted the baby crows!

I used twenty-two hangers and ended up with forty-four tag hangers. I also used them to mark each row of seed that I sowed yesterday too. As of today, all tags are still in place (fingers crossed).