x

Type in what your trying to find.

Gardening

Gardening gloves – the hole story

Alison Stewart

Alison Stewart

July 19, 2012

I have just thrown out four pairs of gardening gloves – every one with a hole in the right index finger. It doesn’t seem to matter what they’re made of (see Exhibits A to D), they all wear through first in the same place.

Exhibit A

The more closely fitting ones also wear through in the right middle finger. In every case, the left glove is intact and perfectly serviceable. What a waste!

Exhibit B

It started me thinking: surely this is a retail opportunity for a gardening glove manufacturer? Gloves for right-handed gardeners could be specially reinforced in the right forefinger and middle finger. For the left-handed, the corresponding fingers on the left hand would have the extra strengthening.

Exhibit C

But maybe I’m missing something. Perhaps the whole gardening glove industry depends on the fact that we all have to throw out our gloves when one finger has worn through. (They say the mustard manufacturers stay in business because of the bit you can’t get out of the bottom of the jar.)

Exhibit D

Maybe there is an eco-warrior solution instead. A right-handed gardener buddies up with a left-handed friend. They each buy a pair of the same sort of gloves. (They have to take the same size of glove of course!) Then, when the inevitable happens, they draw lots to decide who’s going to inherit the remaining undamaged glove from their partner.

Am I on to something here?!

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
5 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
bernhardfeistel
bernhardfeistel
11 years ago

I have just bought my third pair of wellies this year. Always the right one was damaged and somewhat leaking. I always kept the intact left one in the hope to acquire a reserve pair over the years. A vain hope so far but I am building up a collection for a future installation. (Unfortunately my idea to deliver a CV just with pictures of the footwear I have worn out over the years occurred too late in life…)

helen mckerral
helen mckerral
11 years ago

So true! I’ve gone through 8 pairs of leather rigger’s gloves doing that walling, and it’s always the left hand fingers that wear through!

Catherine Stewart
Admin
11 years ago
Reply to  helen mckerral

OK so we need a right-handed gardener in the Adelaide Hills for Helen, and a left-handed gardener in western Scotland for Alison……Or parcels of used but undamaged gloves going global!

James Beattie
James Beattie
11 years ago

Perhaps some form of global gardening glove registry is in order, but what to call it? Glovetree? Garden glovers? Gloves Labour’s Lost?

anne latreille
anne latreille
11 years ago

What about how one always seems to lose one of the gloves – and if you’re right-handed, that’s the one that disappears?