If the Glove Fits

I enjoy getting out into the garden to muck about in the dirt (and sometimes mud). My shoes, pants, shirt, and sometimes my face get dirty. The one thing that stays relatively clean? My hands. And this is because I wear gloves whenever I’m going out to do some serious gardening.

Choosing the right gloves can mean the difference between sore, dirty, blistered hands and clean, healthy hands that are ready to take on the next challenge. But how do you choose the right gloves? And how many kinds of gloves can there possibly be? You’d be surprised.

Your Options

You have several. With the Mark’s Choice line though, we have narrowed it down for your convenience, to two basic styles for ladies and one heavy duty style for men.

For the Ladies

We know you like choices so last year, I had ‘Groundskeeper’ and my summer intern try on glove after glove keeping track of the pros and cons of each. Together, these two ladies designed what I like to call the perfect gardening gloves and for reasons I could never have thought of.

The first is a pigskin leather glove that is designed for use with garden tools. The material helps to prevent blisters and the elastic wrist keeps them snugly on your hand. I would also recommend this glove for pruning roses and raspberries and pulling prickly plants from the garden.

 

The second glove was designed for the knee-dirtying ground-level work: the weeding, planting, digging, you know what I’m talking about. And so, the ladies in the office combined a number of excellent features into this glove: flexible knuckles, wrist straps to keep out dirt, mesh backing for breathability, and rubberized fingertips (to protect the tips from fingernails, so I’m told).

 

For the Men

The men’s gloves combine several important features. First, they are flexible: flexible at the joints and flexible in that they are not too bulky to pick up seeds. They keep out moisture and dirt with goatskin material and a wrist strap. This material helps to prevent blisters and the reinforced fingertips extend the life of your gloves.

The dirt and moisture from the soil can wreak havoc on your skin over time and if you spend as much time as I do in the garden, a good pair of gloves is a wise investment. And remember; keep your knees dirty, not your hands.