Now let's get you ready for action, in the garden!
You will not be able to go hard with your gardening jobs if you are not physically equipped or prepared for the task. Your gardening session will be one big irritation if you are not suitably clothed and kitted for your work, and you will be sore and sorry for days after if you have not taken some simple steps to protect your body. This post is about clothing and personal protective equipment (PPE) for gardeners.
A wide-brimmed hat that provides good protection from sunlight is an essential item for gardeners of the European race when the UV index is 3 or above, to avoid sunburn and the resulting increased risk of developing skin cancer and wrinkly, leathery skin. For Perth Western Australia this potentially harmful level of UV radiation covers most months of the year. When the level of ultraviolet radiation from sunlight is at the level of 2 or below sun protection is generally not needed unless you are going to be exposed for extended periods of time, and you could well benefit from sunlight exposure enabling your skin to produce vitamin D, if your levels of that vitamin need to be topped-up. In Perth forecasts of UV levels below the threshold requiring sun protection are generally made in the winter months, so you might wish to drop the sun protection regime for the winter season, remembering to resume right at the beginning of spring. I start up my sun protection again at the start of September in Perth.
Many people mistakenly believe that high UV levels and sunburn are caused by high weather temperatures, and when people become sunburnt on a day that has not been particularly hot they explain that as a special type of sunburn known as “windburn”. While it is true that UV and temperatures are both at their highest levels in summer, these people are still wrong, in two different ways. Wind can dry your skin and it can sandblast your skin but it cannot burn your skin. Of course heat can burn your skin, but that is not the same kind of skin injury as sunburn. People get sunburnt on cold and windy days from the ultraviolet radiation radiating from the sky, especially from prolonged exposure to sunlight. Many things can affect your levels of exposure to UV, the latitude of your location (where you are in relation to the planet’s equator), the altitude of your location (how high you are above sea level), weather patterns in the Earth’s upper atmosphere, the time of year, the time of day, cloud-cover, reflected radiation, air pollution levels, the length of the period of exposure to sunlight, your degree of protection from UV (shade-cover, sunscreen, clothing, hat), and your skin colour. If you have dark skin or honey-brown skin I will not advise on how you should or should not protect your skin from UV radiation exposure. You need to balance your need for sun protection with your need for sun exposure for vitamin D production. Our skin naturally makes vitamin D in response to UV exposure, and vitamin D is vital for your health, like all vitmains. Your doctor is the person to ask for advice about sun protection through the year for people with brown skins.
For ladies and men with long hair a tight-fitting hat can be used to control the hair. You will need a hat that does not blow away in the wind or fall off as you bend over. I find that the standard-issue daggy high-viz wide-brimmed stiff cloth hat that is held on with a string and adjustable toggle is a practical gardening hat. It can be bought cheaply from a variety store and is durable and washable, and also a very practical choice of hat for other outdoor activities such as bushwalking or the beach. You will be visible for miles wearing one of these dazzling orange or yellow hats, which could be a bonus should you ever become lost in an outdoor adventure. You will be more visible to search helicopters. Wide-brimmed high-viz hats are a great choice for active kids on hikes and walks, especially the types who like to run off ahead of mum and dad. You will be able to see them, but catching up is another matter entirely.
A loose, long-sleeved shirt in a tough fabric can protect your arms in many different ways: from UV radiation, from scratches from sticks and branches and spines encountered while weeding or pruning, from contact with from allergenic saps or pollens from plants, contact with poisonous or stinging plants, or skin irritation from fragile spines or stinging hairs of the caterpillars of some Australian moths or butterflies. Never, ever touch your eyes after touching a hairy caterpillar! The glass-like spines can become embedded in your eyes causing a damaging inflammatory condition, and you don't want that.
Eye protection of some kind should always be used when you working in the garden, to protect the eyes from flying dirt, injury from items such as garden stakes, plant stems or thorns or sap, UV radiation, allergens, irritants, and garden chemicals. Eye protection is definitely recommended for pruning jobs, but you never can tell when a serious eye injury might happen. I once knew a young lady who needed medical attention for an eye injury from simply being too close to the wickedly-spined Strelitzia or Bird of Paradise flower. Ouch! If you do not normally wear glasses, you should definitely wear sunglasses or safety glasses while gardening. Plastic safety glasses don’t cost much at work clothing retailers, or ask a high-viz worker mate to steal some for you from work, and while he's there get him to swipe one of those claw glove clips to hang your gloves off your belt when you aren't wearing them. Fit-over sunglasses can be worn over prescription glasses, but this is considered a crime against fashion.
I think we can all agree that pants are essential. Long pants that protect the knees are advisable for many garden jobs, and those pants need to be suitable for working in. You will go slowly insane gardening or doing any physical work if your pants ride down constantly, displaying your bum-cleavage to the world. Don’t be that person who is photographed by the Google Street View car while flashing le sourire du plombier, while weeding their front verge! I’m always mildly amused when I see people who usually work in offices kindly volunteering for busy-bees and the like, turning up to help in their denims. Blue jeans are not work-pants! They might have been work pants in the first part of the 20th century but a lot has changed since then. Comfortable blue jeans made with stretch denim will inevitably ride down when you do gardening work that involves leaning over or bending down. Forget your fashion jeans for gardening and instead consider high-waisted work pants in a rigid tough fabric, held up with a tight belt, drawstring ties, braces or even consider bib-and-brace style overalls with many handy pockets. As a heterosexual female gardener I’m not sure that hard-wearing loose dungarees are quite my style, but I’ve got to admit they do look comfy and practical. The trouble with dungarees or bid-and-brace overalls is that the hard metal clips that fasten the shoulder straps have to come off for machine washing, and they are fiddly to refit, and you can also loose them while they are off. I find that loose, long, high-waisted cargo pants or navy ladies work pants with pockets on the sides of legs rather than front or back pockets are pretty handy for gardening. The high waist can stop pants riding down. I find that items kept in cargo pants side pockets do not get in the way of work and won’t get sat on, but beware any loose ties or laces on cargo pants that might get caught up in power tools. If you fear ticks and need to work in tick-infested spaces, overalls treated with insect-repellent Permethrin as used by environmental workers might be a good choice. When I go out bushwalking I spray my boots and pants with a good insect repellent.
Good gloves are absolutely essential for gardening. I’m sure you do not want to end your day with half of your garden’s soil under your fingernails, and if you are unlucky you could pick up a dangerous parasite or infection from close contact with the dirt. Don’t forget to wash your gardening gloves, along with your garden clothing. I find that only one style of garden glove on the market withstands the wear of hours of weeding or hand-digging without developing holes that let in the dirt, defeating the purpose of wearing gloves. These are garden gloves with sections of the fabric dipped in a plastic coating. Major supermarkets and hardware stores stock this style of garden gloves but beware of cheap imitations.
As I have grown older I have found one sign of female aging is skin becoming more thin and wrinkly and saggy, with my hands and arms more likely to bruise, cut or tear open from minor scratches and sharp twigs in ordinary garden jobs. Then those small wounds can take longer to heal. This is why I try to use gauntlets these days instead of gardening gloves, to protect my forearms. Unfortunately, I find gauntlets are more expensive and they wear out in the fingers quickly when used for digging. If you don’t get into the habit of using both hands to dig and weed, right-handed gardeners will find that over the years they accumulate a collection of perfectly sound left-hand garden gloves as the right-hand ones wear out first, and vice-versa for left-handed gardeners. One tip is to turn them inside-out and reuse them as right-handed gloves, or your leftie friends who are gardeners might appreciate a pretty weird but practical gift of second-hand left-hand garden gloves (washed of course).
Garden gloves are robust but clumsy, so if you wish to deal with snails and slugs by collecting them by hand and disposing of them, I recommend disposable plastic cleaning gloves, even though they can tear when used outdoors, as a single-use piece of garden equipment. I’m not keen on single-use plastics but these are handy for keeping snail filth off hands. In some parts of Australia garden snails can carry a very harmful parasite that can infect people, so I am always cautious with snails.
Consider using face masks when dealing with gardening materials such as compost, airborne dust or dirt, fertilizer or potting mix, especially if your immune system is compromised or if you are elderly. People have died from respiratory illnesses from airborne particles from gardening supplies. To buy these items try hardware stores or pharmacies.
Don’t forget your hard-working knees, especially if you will be kneeling on damp soil or hard paving or sealed surfaces. A durable foam kneeling pad will only cost you a few dollars from a discount shop, but if you do a lot of gardening on your knees it might be worth investing in an upholstered rigid style of knee pad with metal handles to use to pull yourself up.
Steel-capped work boots with quality socks help protect feet from injury and keep dirt out, but if your feet do not enjoy being so enclosed and hot you might prefer steel-capped canvas shoes or simply an old pair of casual enclosed shoes that you are happy to run into the ground, as a more lightweight option in footwear. Before I found a good doctor to treat my autoimmune issues I used to suffer horribly from a nerve-pain condition erythromelalgia in my feet that was triggered by feet getting hot or immune activity, so this is why I have shoes not boots for gardening. I suspect that some diabetics might have similar problems with hot feet and nerve pain. Another problem with boots or gumboots as gardening shoes is that they limit the movement of feet when going down steep steps, which we have in our garden. I find this a bit of a safety hazard.
My favourite gardening shoes are the enclosed style of Crocs shoes typically used by chefs and medical staff. I like them because they can be washed by hand thoroughly often and are comfortable, but as they are not boots, dirt gets in from the top. Some Croc styles will wear thin in time on the soles but I’ve never seen any break or tear. Crocs get their name from the type of plastic they are typically made from: Croslite, which is a type of plastic used as a foam. As I have found in plastic tubs that I use in gardening, not all plastics are equal. Brands of shoes or plastic tubs that cost more might use plastics that are much more hard-wearing than cheap alternatives, but beware, because I have seen quite expensive garden boots in a plastic that looks like the type to tear with little wear. It is worth learning a bit about the different types of plastic used in products. There are many brands and styles of plastic enclosed shoes, many marketed as gardening shoes. Look for well-known brands and check reviews before buying garden footwear, or you might be just throwing money away. I think there is no perfect solution to which footwear is best for gardening.
What have you found useful as PPE working in your garden? Have I left anything out? Leave a comment!
Cheers, Caroline.
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