I’m on the hunt again. New gloves and glovey recommendations. I run through gardening gloves like a dose of salts they never last too long with my line of work and of course the well known pointy finger syndrome. I usually go through the top of at least one finger in a month of wearings which I suppose isn’t too bad but it does end up costing quite a bit. So I tend to err on the ‘cheap as chips’ offers that come around and home they do the job adequately.
My favourites to date have been a pair of Town & Country Ultimax gloves but at £14.99 a time they’re not really practical, plus the stitching on the back of the hand came loose after two washes, not terribly durable for that price.
The local garden centre does good offers on the T&C Master Gardener ones fairly regularly, I aim for pink or purple but I’ll have green if I must. Too easy to lose if they’re green, bright colours make them simpler to locate when I’ve put them down somewhere. I gather the winter warmer thermal ones are good but as I get hot hands when working have never really tried them out.
At the moment I am running on an average of about 8-10 pairs at any one time. Once used, and filthy, they get soaked, to get the mud off and then laundered, in good weather I might wear the same pair for a couple of weeks without washing. Different gardens have different gloves, colour coded, for those considering hygiene issues in the multiple garden situation!
I did have a lovely pair of Showa gloves given to me but for the life of me I can’t remember where I put them so they have yet to surface in the workplace.
What makes a good glove? well each to their own of course but I prefer a well fitted glove (Ladies size 7!) that I can be manually dextrous in, no point in those oversized leather look things that are like some sort of ‘It’s a Knock Out’ test gear. I can’t handle secateurs or plants delicately enough, perhaps for digging? but even then they’re too clumsy. Waterproof fronts and finger tops are perfect, leather-like is pleasing but the plasticy stuff works too. A fabric back for breathability and flexibility and I don’t mind a Velcro wrist strap though an elasticated one will do. Gloves tend to be slightly too short on the wrist for me, I’d like my wrist fully covered but have yet to find this in a working glove. Fingers that are long enough without the ‘between bit’ being half way up the next finger. Of course I wear different gloves for different tasks, I have some long blue vet gloves that are plastic through and through and come up to the armpit for watery work, there are clearing up gloves which are totally waterproof though a tad clumsy and thicker than others, I have my everyday gloves, currently in 3 colours (see pic below) and I have summer and winter gloves. Summer gloves being lighter and winter gloves being more water-resistant.
A glove wearer even outside of the garden. I have 6 or 7 pairs of leather gloves, all lined, mostly with silk or wool, all manner of colours and a variety of styles. There’s a pair of woollen gloves somewhere but they get wet too easily so have worked their way to the bottom of the glove draw in their attempt to be the least popular pair. Yes, I have a glove draw.
Of course many folk don’t wear gloves when they work in the garden but I do for all sorts of reasons much of it health and safety but not the least is finger nail and cuticle protection. Yes I am a polish wearer and yes I am slightly vain about my hands. Next post will be on hand creams and looking after your hands post garden and then onto clothing….endless posts to come!
Do comment below about your favourite garden gloves and why they make the grade for you, I am always on the look out.