Though spreading insects and diseases is very likely, I don't know of many gardeners who 'sanitize' themselves as they move from area to area. ;-) I know that I don't!! But I am very consciuos of it if pruning diseased plants, for example, and keep my pruning equipment sprayed with alcohol. If I had a lawn disease in the front yard, I would do EVERYTHING I could to prevent it from getting to the backyard. I've seen lawn companies carry brown patch and other diseases from one client to the next, when a little bit of care could have prevented it.

Many pathogens and insect pests are fairly ubiquitous anyway, and it makes more sense to do everything you can to keep your plants healthy by good cultural practices, than by sterilizing yourself from one plant to the next. Common sense, awareness of which diseases might be infectious, and a little bit of care go an awfully long way to prevent small problems from becoming large ones.

Does that make sense?

I garden with disposable latex gloves instead of regular gardening gloves because I've yet to find gardening gloves that do not let muddy water through. So from gardening session to gardening session, I have new gloves. In addition, I always make a point of dealing with diseased plants last in my daily gardening chores so that I don't have to move on to any other plants afterwards (I wouldn't be so nitpicky about it except that I often use my hands to pinch and prune, which means I can't just clean my "tools" like most people do).

I gave up on regular gardening gloves, and now purchase disposable nitrile gloves at Lowes. They aren't expensive, fit either hand, and they're strong.

Like the previous poster, I also tend to prune, pull, pinch with my hands....so cleaning of regular garden tools isn't necessary that often. I can just pull off the contaminated gloves and dispose of them, and put on a clean pair. When I'm going out to remove diseased plant material, I carry a 5 gallon plastic bucket which I use expressly for that purpose...nothing else goes into that bucket. I put all diseased plants/prunings into that bucket...that way, if I don't have the time to dispose of the stuff right then, I can just put the bucket aside until later when I do have the time. And the bucket was cheap, too. I think I only paid a couple of bucks for it at Walmart -- it has a handle and is very light-weight. It has been quite a handy thing to have.

Renee

I'm one of those fools that has an aversion to gloves; I'd rather have Himalayan Blackberry rip up my knuckles and get blisters from digging too much than to have dirt and debris filter down into the glove's fingers, shudder...

That being said, I only wash my hands and cutting tools in rubbing alcohol when I knowingly have been messing with mealy bugs, scale or other bad guys. Ohhhh man! That stings!!