Do you, or don't you . . . . .

I was in a garden center the other day and overheard two ladies talking. One was looking for gardening gloves, and the other said she just couldn't wear gloves to garden - she couldn't 'feel' anything.

Well, I must confess, I couldn't really garden without gloves now, but years ago I would have agreed with the second lady. But then my mother went to work at a wholesale nursery, and her hands just got awful from things in the soil. They cracked and split and hurt, so I decided back then to start wearing gloves when I garden.

My problem with that is, well, I have very short, fat hands! They run in my dad's side of the family, and my fingers are short, and my hands wide, and it's a pain trying to find gloves that I can wear. But I now have four pair, as you can see below.

The three pair on the right are cotton, but the palms have a pebbly surface to make it easy to grip things.

I'll have to tell you though, that when I'm staking things and tying them up, I have to remove at least one glove, but otherwise they work just great. I also wash them and dry them in the dryer. They stain some, but that yellow and the aquaish green pair have been washed many, many times!

The green pair below are new this season, but Ive had some like them in years past. They are also cotton, but they have been dipped in a rubbery substance, so they don't get wet easily and work great when working in really messy situations.

I also wash these in with the rest of my laundry, but have found they don't do well in the dryer, so I just lay them out on a towel or something, and they dry fairly quickly, despite the rubbery coating on the palms and fingers.

And now it's your turn! Do you wear gloves when gardening, or do you go gloveless? It really is a matter of choice, so please tell me: How do you play in the dirt? Have a great day, Becky