Real Gardener?

Ok, so I said the heck with the gloves and got my hands and nails in the dirt. Felt strange at first but I guess it's not too bad and I'm getting the hang of it.....LOL. Does that mean I'm on the track to becoming a real gardener? :)

O Susan you are now considered a true gardener!! There are just some things that you can't do with gloves on! and gardening is one of them!

the only time i wear gloves in the garden is when i collect seed from scotch thistle

me too. I buy a new pair every spring and they last about 3 days! can't stand not having my hands in the dirt. Grandbaby is starting to help me mix my soilless mix, and she loves the feel of it toO!

The only time I wear gloves is when I am pulling the prickly weeds. I went out yesterday after work and weeked for 2-3 hours, of course, I had no gloves on, and let me tell you, I still have dirt under my nails, speaking of which, I did manage to break a couple of them..lol, I usually cut them fairly short in the spring, but since we havent had any decent weather to be out working in the yard, I hadn't cut them yet.

Yes, gardening is a pleasure and a job to be done with bare hands.
To feel the soil is a daily medicine for me and I feel the plants like it too.........
cristina

I go back and forth on the gloves vs. no-gloves. Some jobs CAN'T be done in gloves, but for other jobs, I find I am better off if I wear them. Our heavy clay soil does two bad things to my skin: dries it out terribly, and gets deeply imbedded in all the tiny grooves (kind of a vicious cycle actually - the drier my hands get, the more the grooves get imbedded with dirt. A scrub brush and even a pumice stone can't get out some of this stuff :(

I go through MANY pairs of gloves each year - wear 'em out, leave them laying somewhere... (Kind of like my sunglasses, LOL. Guess that's why I buy cheap gloves AND cheap sunglasses!)

I started this season with a new pair of gloves. I swore I was going to use them everytime I went in the garden. It lasted about a week! I broke more weeds off at the ground level with them on. I can "feel" better without them & know when I am pulling too hard on the weeds. After a day of pulling weeds I will have a nice green spot on my forfinger & thumb that is impossible to clean off! I get the dirt embedded in the little grooves too goVols. I have long thick fingernails (thanks Mom!) and they are always dirty. I keep an old toothbrush at the sink just for them. My neighbors can't stand it when they are "packed" with dirt. "How can you stand that?" they always ask. Doesn't bother me a bit!

So nice to hear that I'm not the only one with nailes packed with dirt. Hey, if I don't have a small shovel handy, what better than my hands to search out things buried in dirt. Like you dignbloom, have long, thick nails that are clean only in January.

i have some raised beds that the dirt is nice and loose for planting. i am always carefull when planting since we have a number of wild cats. did that once not in a hurry to do it again

I can't wear gloves it makes me feel like i can't breathe! of course i can't sleep with socks on either for the same reason. LOL

Gloves have seams that just eat my hands up. Although I am a small frame person, I have large hands, but not THAT large, and work gloves are not built right for them. I'm not sure why but it is so. I have tried all kinds, cheap to sky high, to no avail. If they aren't too harsh, they won't last a day. And I have thin, weak nails. Never have found anything to remedy that, so they break off daily. Stained fingers from weeding and little burs under the skin are the norm here.

My only pair of gloves are Rubermaid kitchen gloves. I use them when I have to pull up stinging nettle or poison oak and then wash my hands with the gloves on in a mild bleach solution befor I take them off. It has saved me a lot of itching and scratching! But the rest of the time the poor ole hands are in the dirt with no protection and the nails are clipped as short as possible to make it easier to clean them up.

I can't work in the garden beds with gloves. However, I have a couple pair of knit gloves with the rubber palms that I use when sifting soil, etc. My hands are generally pretty scratchy during the summer.. my poor husband must feel like he's being brutalized by a logger!