What Makes A Good Gardening Glove?

What Makes a Good Gardening Glove?

Sometimes it hurts to be cheap

If you're gardening on a budget and you need to save some cash, don’t do it by spending less on your gloves. You’ll be better served to cut back on a plant or two and spend that money on protection for your hands. Years ago when I was new to gardening, price dictated what I would buy and that decision caused me a lot of pain and aggravation. It didn’t take long for me to recognize that my priorities were skewed. There were far more important things to consider than price when choosing a good pair of gardening gloves.

Material Girl

If you’re actually touching dirt or plant material, choose a heavier material with a padded palm if you can find it. If you’re working in a wet area that may be muddy without thorny weeds, latex or rubber gloves would be a good choice. You’ll need the protection from wet soil that would soak right through regular gloves. Wet gloves chafe your knuckles and are really uncomfortable to work in. My first gardening season I picked up a standard pair of cheap cotton gloves. They were so soft and pretty, with a nice floral design throughout. The fact that I could look good while playing in the dirt was just an added bonus. Once in the garden, it took less than ten minutes to show me the error of my ways. The gloves were thin and therefore offered little protection from thorny weeds and slivers. I had to stop at every poke, take off the glove and determine if I needed to perform minor surgery on myself with a pair of tweezers. Stay away from thin cotton or jersey gloves unless you only plan to use them to hold the handle of a shovel.

Knowledge “of” your fingertips

When choosing a pair of gloves there are some important features to remember, and choosing a thicker material is only one of them. Another very important feature is reinforced fingertips. Your fingertips will be where most of the wear and tear will happen. They’re also one of the first points of contact you will make with soil and plants. Gloves with reinforced fingertips will last the entire season and offer more protection to sensitive fingertips. Pain aside, just try swiping the screen of your phone with your fingertips wrapped in Band-Aids. It just doesn’t work.

Velcro for nice nails

If you expect to have nice looking nails after your garden adventure, then Velcro wrist closures are a must. How does a lack of Velcro wrist closures ruin your fingernails? Believe me when I say loose gloves will trash your nails. When you work in gloves with wristbands that are not tight or too short, soil will quickly work its way into your glove. Guess what happens to all of that soil as you work? It falls down into the fingertips and jams up under your nails. Soil under fingernails hurts, looks bad, and will cost you a fortune in manicures and dark nail polish trying to cover the damage. You can wash dishes for days and still not get the soil out. If you happened to have had a nice manicure before you started, forget it. Soil acts like sandpaper when rubbing against the polish and will scratch it up and wear it off. If you’re unable to find gloves with tight wrist closures, use a rubber band and wrap it around your wrists. Whatever you can do to prevent soil from getting inside of your glove will be worth the effort in the long run.

Choosing the right plants AND the right tools

Your gloves are probably the most important tool you will have, so choose wisely. The right pair of gloves will help to make gardening the positive experience it should be, and you will actually save you money in the end. One good pair of gloves will last you the entire season, mold comfortably to the shape of your hand and offer you the protection that you’ll need. Gardening should be a joyful experience, not a painful one.[button-green url="https://www.joshsfrogs.com/sprigandstone/garden-tools/gloves.html" target="_blank" position="center"]Purchase Gardening Gloves[/button-green]

Josh's Frogs