No-show, thin socks. I wear them with clogs all summer to garden. They keep your feet from getting dirty and no more splinters.

There are many types of mulches other than bark.......compost, composted manure, grass clippings, shredded leaves, old carpeting, straw, pine needles, sawdust, etc. Pick whatever you like and that is locally available.

And gardening in sandals or bare feet is not suggested :-) Lot of dangers out there in the garden and proper footwear is really a smart move. Don't see too many landscapers gardening in sandals and there is a good reason for that :-))

I know gardening in flips isn’t advised but they’re SO easy to slide on and off at the back door!

I never use bark, only compost and leaves (ohmygod, maple twirlies are THE worst) and while I do still get a few slivers it’s not bad and certainly not enough to male memput tennis shoes on unless I am digging holes

Eee, flip flops. I wear loose-ish old loafers when it's warm, and never worry about dirty feet. In winter I wear lace up Sorel boots--wonderful, and I'm currently wearing those because December and January are the only months I don't garden. For mulch, I use a high quality compost or composted manure. But I also grow plants to cover every inch of bare soil that I can. Don't use any kind of bark chips as mulch. They are the worst. Diane

Sorry, but I can attest that doing yard work or gardening in flip flops is not a good idea, having broken two toes while doing that very thing. I understand the feeling, but it was embarrassing when I had to go to the ER due to a swollen foot. I got some pretty incredulous looks. I managed to find a comfy pair of sneakers. Also, tick exposure…

I like to walk the garden in my bare feet during the spring when the wasps and bees aren't out in big numbers yet, but I don't do any actual garden labor in bare feet. Honestly it's just a bad idea 🤷‍♀️ you'll be fine until you're not. Just wear lightweight sneakers or something. Even the thinnest soles are going to help protect you against thorns on the ground, splinters and any unsuspecting wasps, spiders or bees you may step on.

Side note, the worst splinter I ever got was actually a peice of dog hair in the bottom of my foot. WOW was that incredibly painful and hard to remove.

I too can attest to the dangers of gardening in flip flops.

Last summer, I had the idea to lay down red volcanic rock as mulch for my pots. I did this in flip flops. As I picked it up, the 20 kilo bag of rocks slipped from my grasp and fell right onto my big toe, crushing it. I'm still growing out the bruise under my toenail.

What's worse is that the red lava rock mulch turned out to be a bad idea. Sure it helped retain moisture during the summer drought, but when the autumn and winter rains came and I didn't remove it, it released way too much iron into the soil and the plants suffered.

Two lessons learned: wear actual shoes, and don't mulch with red lava rock.

Seaside, how awful, But lessons learned.

Magpie, time to get a cat.

Everyone, I hope your tetanus shots are current. Diane

"Everyone, I hope your tetanus shots are current."

As they should be for ALL gardeners!

btw, going barefoot is not even safe indoors. Aside from more stubbed toes than I care to admit (small house & too much junk), the worst sliver I ever had came from stepping on the remains of a toothpick embedded in a very low pile carpet. Never even knew it was there! That required a trip to the acute care facility for them to remove the 3/4 inch chunk embedded in the bottom of my foot. Got a tetanus booster then as I couldn't remember precisely when my last one was (boosters at least every 10 years or sooner).

Even after that I am still not inclined to any footwear indoors:-) But Crocs are essential for even a quick trip outside and more heavy duty boots or wellies for any serious gardening.

@gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9) Oh the horror! You poor thing. Lucky for me I always have slippers with hard soles on indoors, but it's mostly because I am weird and when my socks touch the floor I don't like it. My kids prefer to be barefoot at every opportunity though.

@Diane Brakefieldane, how do you keep your laces tied?

Vapor, I do a double knot and a double bow tie over it. The laces are long and easy to untie, but all this doubling keeps them tied no matter what I do. Diane

I buy walmart sneakers ($13) two sizes too big every spring.

i leave the laces tied and just slip them on and off at the back door.

I hated those slivers as a kid when I never wore shoes in the backyard! So I know what you mean! I still don’t wear shoes or socks in the house and I pretty much exclusively garden in Sketcher’s slides. I have a pair of slides at the front and back door that come on and off as I leave and enter. BUT I have a tiny 18x50’ garden plus a small side and front yard bed. There is drip irrigation tubing everywhere under the soil preventing much use of a regular shovel so it is very rare that my tools are anything but gloves, a trowel and hand clippers. Now that my garden is established I don’t have much reason to dig. I add a layer of very fine mulch every spring. My favorite is Kellogg Organic GroMulch….sounds like a cereal :-) I don’t notice any slivers in this brand.

I wear Sloggers. Affordable, cute and last a long time. Gloves when gardening or any dirty job. If your hands and feet are important to you (ha ha) care for them.

I have a shoe like sloggers but the bark still ends up in my shoe. I have too much redwood bark mulching new fruit trees but it's going out and will be replaced by dry grass, old carpeting etc., anything other than something that produces small bits and slivers!

I wear an old pair of Nike’s tied loose. Just slip them on and off at the door. Barefoot in the house in the summer, love the feel of our cool travertine tile on my hot feet. I’m cold in the winter once the temp drops below 70 (spoiled by SoCal) so I wear 3 layers of socks and slipper socks with a thick cardigan…looks like I’m a Sherpa.

"Side note, the worst splinter I ever got was actually a peice of dog hair in the bottom of my foot. WOW was that incredibly painful and hard to remove."

I know my mother wishes she were alive to see this vindication of what I thought was an unlikely theory that the painful splinter in her foot was a bear hair from a bearskin rug.

hay or leaves

I wear easy spirit slide on loafers and SLOGGERS. I do wear socks with the sloggers, otherwise when I walk my feet make little farting noises -- very unpleasant. When doing serious digging or going up and down slopes, I wear tennis shoes. I've learned my lesson.

DO GET YOUR TETANUS SHOTS! My doctor said the old thinking that something rusty gives you tetanus is outdated. They now know that the rusty things we stepped on and gave us tetanus were also in farm yards and gardens and therefore were introducing our wounds to various kinds of bacteria in soil -- so you can get a case of tetanus from a deep puncture from a rose thorn!

Finally -- if you want something to smell really good, get cocoa mulch. It's very expensive, though, and may make you hungry! Some folks don't put it down for fear dogs will eat it, but my dog never tried to eat mulch. Rocks? check. Grass? check. Twigs? check. Mulch? no.

I've started using shredded cedar mulch because it seems to work the best to keep my soil cool and not dried out during summer.

Ah, a bad case of farting feet. What could be worse? I have some sloggers that I've only worn a few times, and never really liked them. I'm remain addicted to my old loafers. I don't think I've seen cocoa mulch for sale around here. It probably all goes to California where the chocolate connoisseurs live. Diane

I just snorted really loudly upon reading your post, Diane. I'm sure people in the hallway think I've done something else. I've tried other kinds of slogging shoes -- but the only ones I liked were the ones called Sloggers that I bought on Amazon (but saw for more money in my local ACE). They are amazingly comfortable (with socks). Hmm...chocolate. I wonder if I have any in my office? I'm going looking right now...

@DDinSB (Z10b Coastal CA), quite right, the tetanus bacteria are basically ubiquitous in soil and anything like it. The whole thing about rusty nails was almost certainly just about puncture wounds, creating just the right environment - lack of air - for the bacteria to grow. Any wound under the skin is enough. Get those boosters!

Do we know for sure that tetanus is worse than the booster?

Worse than the booster for tetanus? Yes, we know this. Ask your doctor if you're concerned.

Tetanus is a horrible, painful disease with a high death rate. The various tetanus vaccines (typically combined with other ones like dyptheria rubella etc) are common and safe.

I recently had to go to emerg from a small bicycle accident with some scrapes - doctors were really clear, if any doubt about how recent I'd had tetanus vaccines, get it, period. They don't mess around with it.

[Obviously if you have some specific condition or reason to worry - ask your doctor.]

There are studies suggesting tetanus boosters every 30 years instead of every 10 years is ample protection.

https://news.ohsu.edu/2016/03/22/study-shows-tetanus-shots-needed-every-30-years-not-every-10

tj

Tetanus worse than the booster--ever hear of lockjaw? Diane

I always use Hemlock mulch in areas I often work in. I can work around the hemlock without gloves and have never gotten a splinter. It's not without splinters but there's just so few of them.

Around trees I use the cheaper mulch found at the big box stores.

I saw one person with tetanus in the hospital and no one wants this, believe me. He looked like he was in status epilepticus.

This is the craziest post I’ve read on here today. ”I garden in sandals and I keep getting splinters . …”

This is your mother speaking: Wear Shoes And Socks!

Thanks, Mom! :-)

Also, if you think it's cold in the house, put on a darn sweater!

I am wondering if my bark mulch is different than ginjj's. I garden in flip flops constantly unless I'm using tools which might endanger my feet (chainsaws, shovels, pickaxes, etc). I've never had a sliver from my bark. Dirty feet? Absolutely. Thankfully I have a bath tub near the back door to wash my feet when I'm done.

Back to the actual question: what about straw mulch? I think I've seen this in other regions where straw is used to mulch instead of bark.

Side note regarding digging things out of our feet, I once went to the dermatologist and had her look at a lump in my foot. Turns out there was a chunk of metal in there that I didn't realize and she had to dig it out. I have no recollection of stepping on anything, but clearly I must have.

Every time I get a tetanus booster, my arm feels like I got kicked by a elephant and swings useless from my shoulder for about eight days, but i wasn't seriously comparing that to lockjaw.

Wood mulch is my least favorite mulch. I use compost and chipped leaves mainly, but I also use hay, straw and seaweed. I really like hay or straw in a vegetable garden, for its farmy effect.

I have gardened in flip-flops for decades. I often wear socks with them, though, otherwise I get cracks in my heels that hurt as bad as splinters. I use the plastic sandals that go over the foot, not between the toes.

If you keep wood chip mulch damp for a few weeks, it softens enough to no longer give splinters. In my dry climate it takes more time, but in most climates a few weeks should be enough to soften them. But I don't have them available in my region/country, so I use other mulch, like crumbled autumn leaves or snipped weeds and wild plants and garden waste.

Years ago I was turned on to grass clippings as mulch for all my vegetables, with oat straw on top if you really want to go overboard.
If your neighbors don't use any chemicals, you could collect all their grass clippings, 6 inches of grass clippings is ideal.
Carla in Sac

@pricklypearcactus - holy smokes. i can't even.

I've enjoyed reading the ideas again and the side notes about tetanus shots. I always keep mine up to date.

I have two 5 gallon containers of lama poop that was given to me 2 years ago by the owner. Because it's round little balls it won't cover completely so I will add something on top -compost, straw, or composted horse manure is also available and free.

This morning I was on my knees weeding my young citrus; it's loaded with weeds. That's when I thought to re-visit this forum and I'm so glad I did!

Thank you all!! Ginny