Soaker Hose – Tips and Deals on Garden Soaker Hoses
Soaker hoses – Great way to save water and prevent disease in your garden. Here’s a look at the best ways to use soaker hoses and some of the best deals on soaker hoses. And maybe an unusual place to find a water hose.
Keeping the garden well watered is one of the most important things you can do for the production of your vegetable garden. A good garden hose is one of the essential garden tools. But simply spraying the hose is tiring and relatively ineffective, not to mention that it’s not really an effective use of water. The same can be said for many sprinkler systems as well that spray water in the air as well.
Soaker hoses have become increasingly popular as a watering system. They are low cost, easy to use, and by keeping the water down on the soil and off the foliage of the vegetable plants, soaker hoses can help reduce the incidence of some diseases, as moisture standing on the leaves can make disease worse, and some are actually introduced by splashing soil up on the leaves.
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Many soaker hoses are made from recycled tires, so you are helping a little with the environment. By not watering in the heat of the day in the air, you can save up to 50% on your water needs as well.
If you want to use soaker hoses on the garden, there’s a few tips to make the best use of them. Most soakers come with an attachment so you can cascade more than one hose together. The problem is that the pressure drops in the hose as you move down the hose (since the water is leaking out), so most gardeners find that any more than 100 feet of hose is not really viable. Even with that limitation, it’s best to plan for no more than 80 feet or so of running hose, and to take the last 10 to 20 feet of hose and double back on the last plants so that they get water from 2 sections of hose, which will equalize the watering somewhat.
If you need to run more than 100 feet of hose, one effective tip is to use a y hose adaptor in the middle of the run, and connect a section of soaker hose to each branch of the Y. This will allow you to effectively double the length of soaker that you can connect and still have a reasonably equal pressure along the hose.
When working with recycled rubber hoses, it’s often best to take them out and just let the sit in the afternoon sun for a few hours. This will relax the hose somewhat, as when you first unpack them the often want to stay in the circle form factor they were packed in. This well reduce the tendency to kink. It’s critical when laying soaker hoses out that they don’t kink, as this will restrict the water flow.
Mulching over the hoses is a good way to keep the water in the ground and off the leaves, and to reduce evaporation and watering needs. Not to mention the reduced need to weed (weeds like water as much as your vegetables).
To further reduce the work of watering, you may want to attach a timer to the hose faucet and let the timer run. Try starting with the hose running twice a week for 30 minutes and see how that does in your area. Never leave the timer on over the winter or when there is a chance of freezing.
One other common use for soaker hoses is to water the house. Specifically, in some areas like the Southwest (North Texas is infamous for this) the soil tends to dry out quickly and move around. These areas can’t typically even have basements on the house because of this problem, and in the hot dry summer months gaps can open up between the home foundation and the surrounding soil, which can lead to foundation problems costing thousands of dollars to repair. Using a soaker hose to keep the soil around the foundation moist and stable is a common technique to keeping walls from cracking and doors from shifting.
Filed under Garden Tools by John
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