OK, it’s the beginning of a new gardening year and minds turn to tools and equipment to make life easier or more efficient.
I’m currently awaiting a Wolf two-way hoe (a birthday present) to clip into the handle I got for Christmas. I came across this wonderful tool whilst on my Heritage Gardening traineeship last year. Basically, if you don’t know, it’s twice as efficient as the normal dutch hoe, as you till the ground on the pull as well as the push stroke. I can’t wait, but it’ll be a little while yet before the ground is thawed enough for me to get it moving.
What about boots or other footwear in the garden? I find I have about 6 pairs of old shoes and boots, only one of which was purposefully bought for the garden (and not by me). This one- a padded leather boot with steel toe cap – is brilliant. But at different times of the year I find weather and ground conditions make one of my other pairs better.
What about you? Do you care what you wear? Do you hanker after some top of the range foot protection? Or do you, like me, just relegate those ‘not good enough for town’ shoes to the ‘there’s a few more years life in them yet’ rack?
Here are some pics for you to ponder- let me know if you have a favourite or what you actually wear out there!
My own personal favourite- safe with a toe cap,but cushioned ankle support too!
And when you finally can’t use your boots any more, turn them into a stylish planter!
Further information:
Michelle Obama’s gardening boots
Old School Garden 
I actually have a very serious footwear issue at the moment. My husband tends to slip on my blue flowery clogs to go in the garden (they are three sizes too small for him, so it’s not a great look) and as if this is not enough of an imposition on my footwear collection, my three children all take nearly the same size shoe as I do. This isn’t a problem for general footwear, but when it comes to garden boots and clogs it’s catastrophic. I tried to go in the garden yesterday and discovered that all my boots had gone to school!
I can only hope that their feet will be bigger than mine very soon.
Lovely to hear your story and I do symapathise! Sounds like you’re in need of serious investment (see my post images for ideas?!) and some sort of lockable shoe cupboard! Send me a pic of your husband in the blue clogs, if it’s publishable!! 🙂
All of us probably leave our gardening shoes out on the back porch, but I once saw a TV story about a woman in Australia who slipped her feed into her garden shoes and a nasty spider pierced her foot. Ever since then I make it a habit to step on top of my ratty tennis shoes before putting them on. I don’t care what kind of venomous bug it is; it’s not going to withstand 135 pounds of pressure. LOL
Hi and thanks for the lovely story! You seem to have made your ‘shoe crumpling’ something of a ritual. Do you wear your ratty tennis shoes all seasons?:)
only until they fall apart