North Coast Gardening

Lined Goatskin Gloves Keep Hands Warm For Winter Gardening

Us pro gardeners are pretty tough. Even so, every year I’m surprised at just how cold winter is. When you go out at 9 am to get a spot of pruning in, and find your breath catching in the cold, you start to appreciate all the little design elements in tools that keep you warm and happy while working outside.

So I was very excited to get to test out a pair of Fields and Lane Forester gloves, just in time for rose pruning season. They’re made of soft, flexible goat leather and even have a deliciously fleecy lining on the bottom of the glove to keep your hands cozy and warm.

While I usually choose very thin gloves so I can have the best tactile sensation, an infected rose thorn in my knuckle last year made me re-think my safety strategy when pruning roses. Did you know that infected rose thorns can cause a number of nasty diseases? Neither did I, until a hard nodule formed on my knuckle and gave me reason to research the issue. I’m fine, but suffice to say, when you have a scare like that, you realize that taking a few small safety precautions is a small price to pay for good health.

When I began looking into some thicker gloves for the coming pruning season, my glove gurus kept mentioning goat leather. It’s buttery-soft, doesn’t crack and get stiff with exposure to mud and water, and conforms to your hands in much the same way as a beloved pair of jeans or boots. They’re the type of gloves where once you break them in, you never want to take them off.

(One of my local safety supply distributors even told me that the ladies he works with swear by goatskin to keep their hands soft, since there’s something in the leather that keeps skin supple and happy.)

So with rose pruning season coming, I’ve been checking out goatskin gloves to see which is the best. There is definitely a wide range of styles and levels of quality in goatskin gloves. One brand I tested had thick leather that felt like it would need a LOT of wearing to break them in. I’m kind of impatient, so wasn’t really down with that. Another had thinner leather, but had such thick seams that they chafed my fingers and felt like a chore to wear.

The Fields and Lane Forester glove has just the right balance – thin leather that’s still tough enough to withstand most rose thorns, flat seams which don’t feel like they’re in my way when gripping or pruning, and that luxurious fleecy lining which makes me feel a little sad to take them off after pruning. The leather is super-soft and provides enough tactile sensation to grip stems accurately and prune with ease.

There’s even a little line of stretchy fabric just behind the knuckle that allows the glove to flex easily when you grip. For me, that line falls just behind the spot where I most need thorn protection, so it keeps my knuckles safe while still allowing good movement.

My only complaint about the glove is that the thumb seems kind of long and baggy. All of my other fingers fit well inside the medium (I usually take a small, but their measurement chart said for me to try a medium), but the thumb has an extra half inch of space at the tip and feels loose. However, when I took the gloves outside and did some pruning, I noticed that I grip with a part of the thumb where the leather was fitted, so it didn’t turn out to be a problem after all.

If you’re on the fence about whether to pick up a pair of these gloves for your winter pruning, Fields and Lane is a company you can definitely be proud to support.

Wave Gardening GlovesTheir daughter Bonnie had cerebral palsy, which inspired them on their mission to help people with special needs. They donate money and volunteer their time to help people with special needs in the US and around the world, and it’s obviously a value they hold deeply. They also donated a huge number of gloves in the wake of 9/11 and the Haiti earthquake to help people during the cleanup efforts.

Want to try the gloves out for yourself? Fields and Lane has offered up a cool prize package of TWO pair of gloves – one pair of the Forester (shown at top) and one pair of the Wave (shown just above). You can keep one for yourself and give one away as a gift!

EDIT: The giveaway has ended and Emily is the winner. Congrats, Emily!

There are two ways to enter:

First, simply leave a comment on this page.

Second, head on over to their Facebook page and sign up for the Fields and Lane newsletter. Then come back here and comment again for an additional entry!

I’ll choose a commenter at random on December 7th, 2011 at noon Pacific time. US only. Good luck!

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post; product and compensation were provided. However, all opinions are my own.

Genevieve

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42 responses to “Lined Goatskin Gloves Keep Hands Warm For Winter Gardening”

  2. Um. Do I have to give one as a gift? 😉 ALWAYS on the lookout for a good pair of gardening gloves. I am brutal on my gloves, and if I haven’t ruined them, it’s a good bet my little terrier has. 😉 If I won, I promise you I wouldn’t leave them in the truck with the dog unsupervised!

  5. These gloves sound lovely, and I could certainly use some new ones…please please please!

  8. What great colors they are! I wonder how they’d hold up to winter gardening in the Michigan mitten.

  12. i do love these gloves. they are so soft and do a crackerjack job of keeping my hands from getting knicked and scratched from winter gardening.

  14. Ah, gloves. I need another pair for the dogs to try. They enjoyed my last ones and they wouldn’t mind a long thumb.

  18. It’s 27 degrees out this morning. My new gloves are soaking wet because my little guy thought my they would be fun in the bath tub. Have to go out to feed the chickens and horses. Can I win and have you send them back to me today in a time machine? Thanks, that would be great!

  21. I’ve been working my converted front yard/veggie garden and a new pair of gloves is just the thing that would make my cold little hands very happy!
    Thanks!

  22. I love the tactile gloves of summer, but these sound perfect for winter use. It’s been cold here on the northcoast these past few days! I have a friend who has had lymph nodes removed from her right arm pit as part of a mastectomy and she tends to get lymphodema. She loves to garden…these sound perfect for her…to protect her from infection.

  27. When I was a kid, I never thought I needed to wear gloves when gardening. Now I am older and, hopefully, wiser!

  31. Genevieve, thank you for a very detailed description of these gloves. I replace my working pair (with lots of worn-out and mismatched singles in reserve) monthly, so finding a really decent-fitting and strong glove with the flexibility and tactile sensitivity to be worn for most tasks is very important to preserving my hands in challenging working conditions. Appreciate that Fields and Lane is a “local,” more or less, company with a standing policy of giving back to their community.
    Holly Greenwood, Under the Greenwood Tree, innovative organic and permaculture gardening in Northern California

  32. I have signed up for the newsletter of Fields and Lane. The Forester and Wave gloves both look great! Thanks for chance to win two pairs of these gloves. Best wishes!

    • The gloves look to be very high quality. I could wear them out gardening though 🙂 !!

  41. Just came across this as I am searching for gardening gloves. I have just had surgery to remove all the lymph nodes under one arm, and my surgeon says good gloves are a MUST when doing my beloved gardening!