gardening gloves that will save your hands. Oh, and maybe also your life
We often bang on about how the most useful weapon in a zombie apocalypse will be a garden fork. But what else, in or out of an end-of-the-world scenario, offers vital protection against early and unpleasant death? An American football helmet? Chainmail? Nope. A pair of gardening gloves.
Never mind zombies, a thorn in the thumb can kill you. Think we’re joking? Not so much. A few years back, Phil was pruning a small apple tree. He’d taken his cotton and suede builder’s gloves off because they were too baggy and bulky, and were making using the secateurs tricky – and anyway, birds were singing, bees were buzzing, all was pastoral and lovely. Then he spiked his bare knuckle on a sliver of bark.
Within 12 hours he was in the first stages of blood poisoning, running a fever and with a sharp red line running from his wounded hand up his forearm. If a local GP hadn’t been so quick off the mark with intravenous antibiotics, Phil was on the way to developing full-blown sepsis. From lalala I’m pruning, to Oh, I’m dead.
We’ve come to the conclusion that the best gloves for gardeners are often not gardening gloves
The UK government doesn’t collect statistics about specifically garden-related blood-poisoning but, sadly, newspapers regularly run stories about someone dying of sepsis a few days after picking up a minor injury out gardening. That’s partly because soil is a rich bacterial environment, but also because puncture wounds – the kind you get from tree splinters, thorns, sharp tools – deliver those bacteria straight into the blood stream.
That’s why a) we have a giant and ever-evolving pile of gardening gloves by the back door, and b) reckon a good pair of gloves is one of the best presents you can buy yourself, or a gardening friend, this Christmas.
So the next question is, what counts as “good”? Go to the glove racks at a garden centre and you’ll be faced with a huge choice. Suede gloves, cotton gloves, leather gloves; padded gloves and plastic gloves; gloves with non-slip grips and gloves with reflective strips…
And here’s the thing. Most them are rubbish. For a start, they’re often made of cotton. Cotton gloves soak up moisture from soil like a sponge, wear out at the fingertips, tear across the palm and give you about as much protection against a two-inch blackthorn as a silk hankie. They are also often pink and have pictures of flowers printed on the back, which is embarrassing.
We’ve tried pretty much every type over the years, and have come to the conclusion that the best gloves for gardeners are often not gardening gloves. Instead, we prefer to use safety gloves. These are designed for tougher jobs than a bit of light weeding, often have a better mix of sturdiness, flexibility and fit, and can even be cheaper than the standard garden-centre offering. Plus they never, ever have pictures of flowers on the back.
Here’s our top three, with our reasons for liking them – along with a few suggestions of where you can buy them in 2019. Oh, and we don’t make any money from these recommendations: all the gloves here are just those that we think, ahem, fit best.
Best for tough jobs: Stovax Extra Long Heat-Resistant Gloves
THUMBS UP You might have stumbled across gardener’s gauntlets – thick leather gloves with an extended suede sleeve, which protects both your hands and forearms when you’re doing particularly scratchy jobs like cutting hedges or clearing a patch of brambles. Unfortunately they can cost a small fortune: £50 isn’t unusual. Much cheaper are thick welder’s gloves, which tend to have longer cuffs than most gloves and sometimes come with a cut-resistant Kevlar lining. Our preferred alternative, though, are actually safety gloves for owners of wood-burning stoves: they’re made of thick, pretty much thorn-proof leather and the extra-long (45cm) version covers you almost to the elbow. If you’ve got to clear a lot of stinging nettles or blackberries from, say, a new allotment, these will see you right.
THUMBS DOWN Don’t let them get wet, or when they dry the leather goes stiff and will chafe your hands for ever after. Also spiders love living in the fingers like zombies love living in cellars – shake the gloves out before you put them on.
One hand size only, around £25-28, from Woodburner Warehouse and Galleon Fires; also occasionally on Amazon
Best for winter: Ejendals Tegera 295 Waterproof Thermal Gloves
THUMBS UP In the dark months of the year, garden work is cold, wet and muddy, with lots of soil prepping and chucking around of manure and compost. It is also when you’ll need to prune fruit producers like apple and pear trees, and mend all the raised beds, compost heaps, cold frames etc that broke, rotted or otherwise fell apart the previous season. So in winter you need gloves that are warm, but not too thick with padding, otherwise they make using tools like secateurs, hammers and saws tricky. And because of the mud (the endless, endless mud…), you also need them to be both waterproof and washable. The Tegera 295s from Swedish outdoor-work brand Ejendals are all of the above, with a Thinsulate lining, a waterproof goatskin and latex outer that provides contact insulation down to -30 degrees C, and a snug fit that allows you to handle smaller tools relatively easily.
THUMBS DOWN While the 295s are cool hand-washable, it doesn’t exactly do the leather outer much good, and the waterproofing means it’s hard to get the inners dry without them going pretty stinky afterwards. But if you don’t mind your hands smelling of old cabbage, go for it.
Sizes 6-12, around £13 a pair, from SafetyGloves.co.uk and WorkGloves.co.uk
Best all-purpose: Showa 310 Grippa Gloves
THUMBS UP We have come to love, possibly in a slightly inappropriate way, the kind of close-fitting, woven “handler” gloves with non-slip grips that you find at DIY stores and workwear suppliers. There are loads of brands, but after trying any number our favourite is the Showa 310. The textured, natural rubber fronts make handling metal trowels and hoes comfortable even on cold days, while it generally takes a least a season of grubbing about hand-weeding before you get the inevitable hole at the tip of the index finger. The backs are a tough but breathable cotton-and-polyester mix, so you don’t get too sweaty in hot weather, and you can chuck them in the wash at 40 degrees without any worries. Finally, the fact that they often come in high-viz neon orange or green means that when you drop them in a veg bed, you will actually be able to find them again.
THUMBS DOWN Worked hard, they’ll probably only last a year; two at most. And unlike cotton gloves, the the rubber bit means they’re not recyclable, and if tossed into landfill the polyester in the woven backing will sit around for pretty much ever. It might (might) be greener just to burn them – but if you’re a manufacturer or user who knows otherwise, get in touch and we’ll share.
Sizes 7-9, around £3 a pair, available from many DIY and builders’ stores, JustWorkGloves.co.uk and The Safety Supply Company
