A couple of weeks ago, I stopped in at Job Lot (our RI and Mass discount store) to buy my supply of gardening gloves. If I don’t pounce now, they’ll be sold out – at least the ones I prefer will be. These are my favorite all-purpose gloves.

They have fabric on the tops and are coated with some sort of rubbery stuff on the fingers and palms. They’re comfy and relatively waterproof and I buy three pairs every season in case I run out. At $2.99 a pair, they’re a bargain.

Here’s one of last year’s gloves. Definitely finished.

While I love the feeling of soil on my bare hands, I eventually grew tired of all the nicks and scrapes and the incredibly persistent dirt. My hands still get dirty when I wear gloves, but they’re not quite as bad.

When I am working with roses, I wear leather gloves to protect my hands from the thorns – and the fungus you can get if you are pricked by one. This happened to my mother-in-law, and it turned into a drama that lasted several weeks.

Sometimes, if I am doing something very delicate, I put my gloves aside, but most of the time, especially when I am working in a client’s garden, gloves are as much a part of my uniform as my Felcos, my apron and my hat.