Where do you keep your gardening gloves?

Fun winter project for gardeners?  Collect all the gardening gloves you can find and survey the sorry scene they create.  Here you see:

• Stiff leather things I'll never use again
• Versatile work gloves, though all too large
• Waterproof gloves, regular length and extra length - useful for hundreds of jobs
• Shown in the photo below, the workhorses of my gardening life - covered in mud, riddled with fingertip holes, and stretched beyond fitting.  To be trashed.
• A very promising pair of West Country recycled ones - in purple - that I'm eager to try and review.
• Some pink Atlas gloves at $7/pair, yet to be tested.
• And not in the photo (coz they were in my office - go figure!) some Womenwork stretch gloves, all high-tech with "micro suede", Velcro, you name it.

Reviews of all of them are coming soon but first - where to hang 'em?  Anybody got the perfect way to store your gloves - so they''ll dry out, and you can see what you've got?  Because the "system" of stack of gloves in various places, indoors and out, is simply not working for me. 

Comments

[Kim]

Susan, I can't help you. I keep mine in a garden tote that has lots of pockets around the outside. I store different types in different pockets. If they are wet, I set them on the top to dry. And then they fall behind the shelf if I'm not careful. So I have lots of singles for which I need to retrieve mates. No help whatsoever. But I'm hoping that with my new shed, I'll come up with something. If I do, I'll let you know.

[Susan Tomlinson]

I toss them in a leather garden tote Walt gave me for my birthday one year. Works for me. I usually have three in rotation. One new, one favored, and one heavy leather for hauling rocks and working with cement.

[nandina]

We have the common green shelving along garage walls for storage. Spent years looking for the 'missing' glove until inspiration struck. Tied strong twine tightly from side to side at the back of one shelf and hung the gloves from it with spring-type clothes pins. Problem solved. Gloves are always dry, matched and visable. So simple and I have often wondered why it took me so many years to figure it out.

[Jim/ArtofGardening]

I think you should keep them on a long string - about the length of your arms outstretched and weave them in and out the armholes of your top seven garden-working shirts. Kindergartners can't be wrong.

[Hostabuff/InciteGardening]

The untested pink cheapies are the best garden gloves. Since discovering these reasonable priced gloves, my Horticultural club buys them in bulk and sells them to raise funds. They sell like hot cakes and receive rave reviews from all the members. They fit perfect, grip well and almost feel like you are wearing nothing – which I would preferred if it wasn’t so damaging to my hands.

How do I store my gloves? I added easy glove access to my new potting shed this summer. I installed a large wrought iron ring holding a large clay pot – right inside the door – just for gloves. A second setup like this holds my hand tools. Of course this does not solve the problem of dirty gloves gracing my kitchen counters if I forget to make a trip to the shed before coming in…

[Susan Cohan]

I keep 'em in the door of my truck, car + and extra pair in the work bag I haul around from project to project. All the same type, each a different color.

[Patti in NNY]

I found a mesh pocket thing that hooks over the top and under the bottom of doors. It has dozens of pockets and gloves fit in there perfectly.

[Ellen]

The Atlas gloves are all that I use anymore. I have a collection much like yours, which I can't throw away, thinking that someday I might actually need to use a different pair. My leather gloves are better for yanking ivy roots out of the ground, or for a serious session of rose pruning, but that's about it.

I buy the Atlas 370s in bulk from Palm Flex.http://www.palmflex.com/atlas2.htm Every so often they have a sale, which makes the gloves even less expensive. Since I wear out the finger tips of 3 or 4 pairs every year, this is a good deal for me.

What I like best of all, though, is the fact that I can just toss them in the washing machine when they get dirty, and set them out to air dry. Don't add fabric softener to the load, as it makes the nitrile very slippery from then on.

[Katie]

I might be weird, because I don't use gloves. I haven't for years--even if I am pruning roses. The only time I wear gloves would be to transplant a cactus or euphorbia that is spiny, and then I also use pliers!

[Tamra]

I go from my garden to the house through a screened porch, where I have a close line. If the gloves are wet when I come In I hang them on the line.

[sarahammocks]

All excellent ideas! Here's what I do with my rubber gloves which I use regularly in the yard along with the usual motley assortment of gardening gloves:
http://www.popkrazy.com/images/garden/showAllImages.php
I hang my gloves fingers side up on plastic bamboo stakes, so the insides dry out. Makes them easy to find, and doubles as yard art--

[Tomato Lady]

I built a little cubby for gloves, etc. that lives out in the garden because I always leave my gloves inside and hate to traipse back in to get them with my muddy self. (http:www.littlehouseinthesuburbs.com/2008/09/build-garden-cubby.html)

[Anne (in Reno)]

We have a funny little room that my husband calls The Snowboard Waxing Room, it connects the garage with the back porch and holds all my tools. There I have a shelf by the door with my only two pairs of gloves - heavy leather Smith and Hawken gloves that I have beaten the crud out of for five years before I finally went through the fingertips completely this summer, and even heavier-duty West Country landscaping gloves that I got as replacements this summer for the leather ones. And I have already gone through two fingers. I am kind of P.O'd at them about that, those were not cheap gloves and I was excited about them :(

[Michelle Derviss]

I keep them in my truck.
I have a king cab Toyota with a clear plastic storage container in the back cab.
In it is always two tape measurers, ( a Fat Max 30 footer and my 100' foot surveyors tape ), my felco's, my work gloves ( Foxglove knockoffs ) various pens and pencils, a lazer level, and the Marin County Thompson Street Map.

They always seem to dry out quite nicely in the truck.

[SJ]

I put the current pair I have on the dashboard - where it can dry out from the heat of the windshield from the sweat, rain or at least in the last couple of days snow. They're kind of hard to miss there.

I always keep a spare pair in a toolbox in the back of my van along with a of pair of leather gloves (for pruning roses) & a winter pair for dormant pruning.

[Les]

I garden commando style, gloves off that is. The only time I wear them is when it gets too cold, and if it is cold enough to have to wear gloves, I'll likely not be gardening.

[carol]

I do agility with my dogs and have a set of weave poles which usually sit on the back yard patio. A few years ago having rinsed out a pair of muddy gloves I stuck them on a couple of the poles(thre are 6) to dry and therein began the habit of keeping gloves on the weave poles - 3 pair if they are not clipped together more if they are .

[Carolyn]

I have an embarrassing bucket O' gloves, some without mates that are perfectly good otherwise. For everyday gardening use I looove my pink Atlas gloves because they are supple, protective, and my hands don't get all sweaty. The Atlas company also donates to breast cancer research when you buy the pinks, which is a subject near and dear to my heart. For heavier tasks, such as brush cutting and hauling and rose pruning I use either my high gauntlet Tahoe or Bionic gloves and wear an extra large pair of Atlases on top of them to protect the leather fingertips from wearing out, as these gloves are expen-SIVE. My favorite winter work gloves are my heavy-duty leather, flannel lined Wells Lamonts, which I could not find today, dang it.

[seaustin]

Comment is similar to the one about clothespins. Only I use the clothespins that have a hook on one end. Then I clamp the gloves together at the pincher end and hang them with the hook end on my garden pegboard. Works great when I remember to do it.

[Carol, May Dreams Gardens]

Earlier this summer, I gathered up all the garden gloves and put them in a basket in the garage, except the pair in my trunk, the pair in the sunroom, the pair right by the door to the garage. I've got all sizes and brands, but this year it seemed like I mostly wore my Ethel gloves.

Like many others, even though there are just a few pair of gloves that I really wear, I can't seem to get rid of the others. I might need them!

[Rosella]

I have about 6 pairs, 5 of which need to be tossed and replaced. A friend gave me a pair of Foxgloves, which are nice for normal work, but I need some heavier gloves too for rose pruning, cleanup around hollies, etc. The Atlas ones look good, and I think I will order a bunch.

If mine are wet, I peg them on the outdoor solar dryer behind the shed, fold them together when dry, and put them with their kin in the Chinese rice pot outside the deck doors, where they live with the Felcos, the twine, etc. Easier than a trip to the shed when I just want to get out quickly.

[Claire Splan]

I now hang my gloves on little ring clips from hooks near my back door. It's convenient and it allows them to dry out well. I'm still really liking the Ethel gloves I got this summer.

[bryan herdman]

A real gardener doesn't use gloves IMHO. With gloves you can't feel the soil, roots, or plants properly. The appropriate place for gloves is therefore in the trash.

[Elizabeth Stump]

How about a story on what to do with gardening gloves once you've worn through them? I have several pairs of cow, goat and pig skin gloves that my husband and I have worn through! Holes on fingers and thumbs that no longer protect us. A nice blackberry thorn sliced my pinky right through a big hole in my glove and wound up grinding dirt into the cut to boot! So instead of chucking them out once I've worn them out, any ideas on what to do with them?