Red Wing sells very nice boots for over double the price I used to pay for the Carolina boot I used to to buy. It was the best one Carolina made as far as durability, by far, because of the leather.
This is a different style of boot with stitching at the tip of the boot that will be worn by climbing in trees, but it will be good for when I’m working around my own garden, orchard and nursery. My trees are all accessible with a short step ladder so they don’t wear out boots as quickly as when climbing through them while pruning. Soles need to be stitched to the boot or they usually become unglued before they are otherwise worn out. For me.
Nice idea, but inadequate to supply the support needed for my feet. A closure like that would assure loose laces as shown in the photo. Quick shoe laces are an invention waiting to be made and the patent will be worth a fortune. Velcro has not been the answer for serious work boots. Side zippers with laces do not eliminate the need to re-lace every time you put a pair on, at least on the military style types I’ve tried.
When one is of an age where the social security checks are coming and still spends much of his time climbing ladders and trees, firm ankle support may become necessary, otherwise, Romeo style boots would be an answer.
Back in the day when Italian labor was not expensive I used to use solid leather Vasque hiking boots as my work boots. They were about as good for driving a shovel as they were for hiking. They were constructed of whole grain leather with no exposed stitching and lasted a long time. Even then, they were relatively expensive, though.
All your posts have inspired me to upgrade my garden attire. I bought a few pairs of
Cargo pants from Walmart a few years ago and I like these because they have several pocket options for tools. I need to improve my waist to hip ratio so they stay up better when loaded with tools.
I also don’t garden commercially but my garden clothes are whatever I’m wearing at the time. Typically that’s flip flops or no shoes (I garden at the beach as I’m on a barrier island) shorts and a tshirt. I also very seldomly plan to be poking around in the garden for an hour or two as this happens mostly by accident. If I’m wearing shoes it’s something by vivobarefoot as they make the best footwear imo, once you go to a minimalist shoe with a wide toe box it’s hard to go back. If I was doing something like I’ve seen you post photos of @alan id definitely need to up the wardrobe, and I like those boots, I’ve just never been a boot wearer, my feet get claustrophobic
Or you need suspenders. If you are carrying a lot of weight in your pockets suspenders are always the best option for holding up pants, even if you have a true waist. I’m thin but straight, so I don’t have much waist either, but the antique military pants I wear are designed to use with suspenders that button on. Clips aren’t strong enough for me. Duluth advocates suspenders as well, but from the drawings it appears to be for men with big bellies. They sell metal fasteners for suspenders you can hammer through the fabric to attach.
Another great product that is no longer manufactured are Welch suspenders made with elasticized cotton and solid leather ends with button holes. They still make them, but don’t use the cotton any more, which I like. No one else uses cotton anymore that I know of, so Welch is probably still the best brand at a reasonable price. I think they make them in Oregon.
Brigade Quartermasters carries current military issue type pants, but they don’t make them the way they used to. The only thing I might buy from them are pants made for hot weather out of all cotton, but they don’t hold up all that well because the fabric is thin and just because they call it “rip stop” doesn’t mean it really stops rips.
I had found that the non-ripstop military-style cargo pants made by Propper were a lot thicker and the most durable out of new production pants that I could find.
I have a pair made by Rothco that seems pretty sturdy for a summer weight 100% cotoon pant, but they cost about $40. I thought they were authentic military design when I ordered them, but they were a bit of a knock-off of Vietnam era cotton ripstop military pants.
I’m surprised others here haven’t commented on using military surplus clothes for gardening. So much of what various militaries use is very well made and highly functional. Army surplus stores are fairly common around here and also when veterans die their old clothes can end up in thrift stores. But there are people who work in those stores that snatch up any collectables to sell on E-bay. It takes more luck to find good stuff for cheap these days.
This is the type of pant I will be wearing today. I paid $15 for it but this pair is going for almost $100 on E-bay. There is another pair available for over $200. It is high waisted with buttons for suspenders. The fabric is 100% soft Melton wool. Made for the Swedish military close to a century ago. The side pockets aren’t as billowy as U.S. military heirlooms. Those are the best side pockets.
I’d love to have mostly wool clothes but as you’ve mentioned they are so costly. I have a few articles but can’t see spending more than $100 for pants or shirts, but I do love me some wool
No, they can be fully tightened, that photo was taken with them not even on my foot. Here’s what it looks like before and after tightening, I still have to pull the laces tight and put it on the hooks, but it can easily tighten or loosen later without pausing to untie and re-tie them:
If anything, I often find myself pulling them too tight initially and loosening a bit after walking awhile. I did the same thing when I used to tie them, but it took a lot longer to make that later adjustment then.
I found the deal on those Swedish pants by searching a long time on the internet for it and when I found what I wanted I pounced and ordered a 10 year supply for me.
Wool isn’t just warm, it doesn’t tend to pick up dirt, so with a cotton underlayer I can wear the same pear of pants for 3 or 4 weeks, brushing them off occasionally. Eventually they will start to look dirty, but I can’t get more than 2 days out of my cotton pants before I have to wash them.
I can’t claim credit for it to be honest, the local bike shop has a big bin of these cinches at the checkout counter specifically for this purpose, I think they were like 25¢ apiece or something like that. Once I tried it, it was hooked and use them for all my laced shoes now.
Oddly it’s hard to find them on Amazon, I must be searching for the wrong terms, but this 12-pack for $7.99 looks to be the closest to this design that I can find:
I could do a whole topic on work boots. I use different brands for different conditions but one thing that is difficult is water proofing. The breathable waterproof linings seem to be short lived as pores get stretched over time and permit water entry. Gortex and newer renditions don’t seem to have overcome this issue in footwear, although I never see it discussed. If they sold gortex lilke socks you could order boots a half-sized bigger and simply replace the socks when they’ve worn out. I have purchased such socks from army surplus outlets but not in recent years. They were used by the British army at one time. Rubber boots are the only reliable water proof boots and rubber is not a great fabric for footwear- but what can you do? I have a Chinese pairr of rubber boots that are at least as well constructed as Muck boots for half the price. I use a supplementary metal insole to get the rigidity I need but they still are a bit floppy and are not ideal as all day foot support. Duck boots made of rubber with leather tops that lace have the advantage of better fit, but good ones are pricey.
Soles that are glued on instead of stitched often lead to premature boot death, although I’ve discovered that Loctite has a glue product that sticks to almost all materials with a strong bond… much stronger than the contact type cement sold as shoe goop and it doesn’t expand while drying like Gorilla glue. However, it isn’t flexible, which isn’t as much of a problem in boots as I expected it would be… I lean towards rigid soles anyway. I use electric tape to force the sole against the boot while gluing. I greatly extend the functional life of glued sole boots this way.
My wife has had great success with Duluth, and I have a chamois shirt that I like a lot, but was disappointed with their Flex Fire Hose pants. They developed a hole in the knee rather quickly. As soon I had it patched up, a hole started in the other knee. Ordinary Wrangler work pants have held up much longer.
On my second pair of farm boots. I had worn mid-calf Muck Chore boots since 2015, but they got a few crease/wear holes on the tops so they aren’t totally waterproof now. I still wear them occasionally.
My Mom and sis got me a new pair of full calf Arctic Pro Muck boots for Christmas. They definitely keep your feet warm, we had some single digit temps and snow on the ground and my feet didn’t even notice. The only thing I don’t like about them is they’re full calf boots, so it’s almost like wearing a cast on your legs, kinda uncomfortable.
With all the deer ticks here, I wear light colored pants tucked into my white socks, sprayed with bug repellant. And long sleeves to avoid having to use sunscreen. In really hot weather, I stay home!
Same here. Light colored pants tucked into my socks. It gets hot here at about 9am so I mostly do my orchard items early so I can wear a long sleeve shirt.
I got lyme disease several times when it first appeared here a quarter century ago and got the vaccine that was later pulled from the market. After receiving the vaccine I’ve never gotten lyme disease again, at least not where symptoms are clear although sometimes I suspect I have permanent lyme induced brain fog- but how can I differentiate that from the effects of aging?
Anyway, now I simply pull the ticks off my body when I find them and give it little thought. It’s strange how in Europe the disease has been around for a very long time and never created the sensation it has in the U.S. Was that ever explained?
I know two people that have been very sick from tick diseases. Last year I had a tick on me that was so small I needed a x7 magnifier to identify it. Now I’m not expecting to always see them. My son worked in a very high concentration tick area for a few weeks. He said permethrin worked extremely well. He would see them crawl on his pants and then fall off. Now I spray my garden shoes with it weekly and my pants if I’m in a high tick area.
