Kitchen Garden Forum

I'm sure everyone has their favourite method for getting the muck off their hands/paws/trotters (delete as appropriate).
This is mine, and I am curious what other methods (blowtorches, liqued gold and any similar methods excluded.) people use.

I find it is usually the pads of thumb and forefinger that are stained by vegetation, while the outside edge of my forefinger gets rough and fissured trapping all sorts of dirt.

After a luxurious soak in the tub, to soften the dirt of course, I trim my nails/claws/talons, scrub thoroughly, sometimes repeating several times, note the remaining dirty bits, resoap and use an artificial pumice stone (Avon). This usually sees off all the muck.

To finish off I use Crabtree & Evelyn Gardeners Hand Therapy, a really thick low odour hand cream, which works an absolute treat.

Crabtree & Evelyn also do a Gardeners Soap, a bit like Swarfega, but with little bits of pumice in it.

Body shop hemp hand cream is the best. I work in a hospital and wash my hands probably 20+ times a day. This is good thick stuff and works wonders for keeping the backs of your hands and nail beds really soft.

Worth every penny, but shame it comes in such and akward tube.

Tara

I must be really lucky i hardly ever wear gloves for gardening, even when pulling up stinging nettles, so my hands are pretty rough. But i never have any trouble with my hands getting stained, a quick wirebrush and there like new.

Kind regards a rough handed Old Herbaceous.

I'm a hard man with a soft collar.

if it is just soil ,plain cold water works as well as anything. apparently if you use hot water the pores in the skin open and actually suck the dirt in. the best by far for engine oil is good old green fairy liquid, used neat to start then rinsed off with water. but be very careful not to leave black handprints on the bottle by the kitchen sink.

Crikey Peter, apart from the fact that you lie in a bath soaking your paws and I hate baths and soak my paws in a bowl of water, I do exactly as you do; right down to the Crabtree & Eveyln products!

Hi Old H,
I'm the same of you and don't bat an eyelid pulling up nettles with bare hands. I simply cannot work with gloves on. I do use vynal ones when using anything noxious but otherwise nothing.
I have been known to use sandpaper on the callouses that sometimes become troublesome!

I use a barrier cream at work which stops the crap embedding into my trotters in the first place and makes it really easy to get off oil and the like.

In the garden however, I never bother and like Peter soak them in the bath afterwards (mainly to sooth the aching joints) and then use a really hard scrubbing brush to scrub out the stains. Afterwards I apply Neutragena hand cream as its excellent.

I must say though that I work with my hands and they are rough, like Johnboy and the Old Herb`s, unlike your office-wallah girlie soft hands.

Only wear gloves when stinging nettles are being pulled as I have an allergy to them. Come out in big lumps and a rash that travel along whichever extremity i've been stung on!!!

Lush do a really nice soap with pumice bits in that smells really lusheous. Then, I massage in a bit of baby oil with lavender into my little pinkies. Grock finds it's very difficult to get the soil off her talons and scales and has resorted to using a blowtorch on occasion.

Don't know about trotters though. Bet he doesn't use bacon fat as a moistureiser though

I wear loose plastic gauntlets for the really dirty jobs and this means that my hands never get in the rough driedout state that a lighter soiling doesn't wash off easily with cold water and a touch of liquid soap. Too much washing can easily mean that you remove the natural oils in the skin hence the rough condition which leads to even more drastic treatment.
Several pairs of gloves, change frequently and hang up to dry out, otherwise they get very smelly.
Allan

Hello,
I think my hands fit the description of Old Herbaceous.
Tend to use the yellow knitted criss-cross latex covered.?? gloves in the Winter.. not sure if I have described them correct.??.. but the type often used by builders and thus sold at best rates in builders merchants.

Nitrile rubber gloves used when applying fertilisers/mixing chemicals.

I know one thing...I much prefer garden muck to filthy, mucky, greasy, oily, grimey LawnMower Muck.

Clive.

I'm rubbish at wearing gloves when gardening and only use them when doing a lot of digging, so end up with fairly mucky paws on a regular basis.

If you use a teaspoon of sugar with a little bit of light cooking oil to lubricate it, this scrubs off all known yuck. You wash your hands with soap to get the oil off, but by then some will have saoked into your skin and will soften it as well. Don't use extra virgin olive oil unless you want to smell like a jar of Hellmans

Sue

Piglet! I'm an "office wallah" but I sure as hell don't have "your office-wallah girlie soft hands" thank you very much. I'm storing up these insults (in particular those relating to my Lulu) and retribution will be swift and unexpected my little pork chop.

Ha, I have bribed Tigger to protect me from you at Malver.

He's right - I am in his debt.......

Ah Piglet, but you have to remember that us Sherrifs stick together, so bribe or not, you are crackling my friend.