Gloves or no gloves?

[hedgehog]

For me it's been gloves all the way ever since I slashed a finger open on some buried glass. I have an entire glove wardrobe; rubberized gloves for planting bulbs in the cold, cotton gloves for weeding on hot days, gauntlets for rose trimming.

[appal_jack]

1. No gloves for me

I need to feel the earth, smell it on my hands, and get some dirt under my fingernails. And I love developing callouses when I've been working hard. But the communication with mama nature through my skin is the main thing. I've encountered glass now and then, but nothing serious. And one time a spider chased me out of her area with something that wasn't quite a bite, but sure could be felt. That wa skinda neat, since she got her point across without doing serious damage to me.

Oddly enough, I used to also be really into going barefoot, but now I've gotten sensitive about my feet getting banged up. These days I hardly ever leave the house without heavy work boots on. Full-grain leather work boots are mandatory for me in the garden, and barefoot romping is saved only for the most leisurely times, and only in locations I feel are extremely 'safe' and grassy/mossy/plush.

-app

[jhain]

2. no gloves

Well, I buy them and I swear to myself that I *will* wear them, but while I leave the house with gloves on I rarely return to the house with gloves on. That 'need to feel the soil' urge takes over and the gloves get jettisoned at some point. I joke that some future archaeological dig is going to make people think that there was a glove FACTORY on this site.

or a spoon factory due to all the spoons my kids have stolen from my kitchen left out there while digging over the years.

-Jude

[mitchtv]

3. Gloves for pruning

no gloves for hand weeding (hard to grab a St. Augustine grass with gloves on) but I have lots of bougainvilla, hence golves

[TygrBright]

4. Depends on what I'm doing...

...but since I moved to New Mexico I wear them for almost anything that involves contact with the adobe out here. It sucks the moisture right out of your skin and I end up with cracking, painfully dry, miserable skin if I don't glove up. Also wear for pruning and cutting back woody perennials and hauling brush, etc. We have black widow spiders and BIG centipedes here and the last thing I want is to unwarily have an encounter.

warily,
Bright

[sazemisery]

5. Sometime yes - sometimes no

Usually depends on if they are "at hand" when I need them. Usually I wish I had them halfway through a project.

[susanna]

6. I'm a glove girl...

...same issue you had. I have come across rusty pipes (who knows what for?), broken glass, and buried pieces of metal. I have been lucky and never hurt myself, but I have a glove collection that some find overdone: leather, rubberized, canvas, etc.

If I am doing simple above-ground weeding? Canvas. If I am planting deep-seated plants? Leather. If I am doing bug control? Rubberized.

Of course, the very first seedlings I put in each year are in raised square-foot beds; those, I sink my fingers into the dirt and love every second of it, including scrubbing under my fingernails later. :-)

[Gormy Cuss]

7. Gloves for all occasions, like you.

I use leather palmed gloves if I'm using a shovel or other long handled tool and lightweight cotton or rubberized ones the rest of the time. I have extra long ones for the thorned plants like the roses and citrus.

Gloves are a lot easier than scrubbing the dirt off my hands every time too.

[NJCher]

8. vinyl gloves

I like them because I can "feel" the soil without my hands getting dirty. The soil seems to take moisture out of the skin and I can't bear feeling my hands dry.

I buy boxes of vinyl gloves. I learned that if you put a pair you've worn into some cornstarch, you can wear them again. The cornstarch sucks up the moisture and makes the vinyl gloves easy to get into on the second or third time it's worn. I have a wooden box full of cornstarch and it's there that I put my gloves for use another time. They usually don't last past two or three wearings, though.

I once figured the cost of these gloves and I think it's about 10 cents a pair but I'm not sure now--so long since I figured it.

I have a drawer full of gloves for all types of projects--brown work gloves, the kind for gripping that have the little raised vinyl bumps, nice, form-fitting garden gloves with stretch built into them and in pretty colors, too. But most of the time I get by with my vinyl gloves.



Cher

[stuntcat]

9. I think they get in my way

but then I regret not wearing them because the dirt dries my skin and the plants make me itch. .I have glove issues.

[NMDemDist2]

10. gloves here all the way too

too many stickers and weird stuff in the ground

[hedgehog]

11. Weird stuff in the ground all right.

I'm used to finding old bottles, broken glass and chips of pottery. I've also found a horse shoe, pieces of harnesses and a coin from 1807! I always wonder who dropped the coin and what they were doing and where they were going. This ground was part of a land grant for revolutionary War veterans. It was seized from the Iroquois because they supported the losing side in the Revolution. That coin might have been dropped by the first white person to till this soil.

[NMDemDist2]

12. dang! that's pretty cool n/t

[hedgehog]

13. I wonder if he or she was walking though a cultivated field or

swampy woods or what. It must have been quite a loss, it was a dollar coin.

I always figure if my family leaves any trace here, it's going to be in the form of hundreds of Legos!

[susanna]

16. That's just awesome.

I know this is an older post, but I hadn't seen it before now. How neat is that?!

I found some Catholic medallions that were pretty old buried by my back door in my now herb garden. I felt guilty about disturbing them so I reburied them deeper. I figure why chance potential wrath? :-)

[cmd]

14. Leather gloves all the time

Not to protect my hands, but to work more efficiently.

[LWolf]

15. No gloves.

My hands get dry, my nails get dirty and broken, and I get scratches, cuts, and blisters. I don't care.

I like to touch the soil directly, and I don't like my hands hampered by gloves. :shrug:

[Shoelace]

18. touching the earth (except when pruning)

no gloves for this old gal - been getting my hands dirty since I was a kid making mud pies! Just something so healing about all that black soil. When I prune the roses though, I try to remember to wear gloves.
Dirt is my "therapy"!!

[Blue Gardener]

17. Gloves

Most of the time, except when planting in pots. Then they just seem to get in the way.

[NCarolinawoman]

19. I start out with gloves and then I toss them aside.

Funny thing is, I'm not even conscious of when I toss them....but there they are, just laying on the ground.

:shrug: