Watering a garden can be a time-consuming process. You spend your time watering and rewatering the same plants.
Every gardener knows this struggle.
The faster you water, the less water your plant actually gets. Trying to make sure your plants get the water they need is essential, but how can you maintain the balance between time spent and water absorbed?
What if there was a way for you to spend less time watering your garden AND still make sure your garden gets the water it needs?
A Homemade DIY Soaker Hose!
If you have been gardening or are just starting out, you have probably heard about soaker hoses. We all know that buying all the equipment for a soaker hose set up can be a pricey though. We also know that soaker hoses are convenient for any garden.
If you are willing to invest in the equipment needed to get soaker hoses and the connective gear, watch this video to get some helpful tips from the GardenFork.
However, if you are not looking to invest in rolls of soaker hose or the connective gear, you likely already have the equipment you need to make your own.
Homemade Soaker Hose System
So, if you are looking to make your own soaker hose without spending lots of money on equipment you don’t have, just use what you’ve already got.
To make your soaker hose, all you are really going to need is an old hose. You probably don’t want to use a new garden hose (you’re about to ruin it and make it useless for ordinary hose purposes), a nail or box cutter, maybe a hammer, and more.
List of stuff:
- Hose
- Nail or box cutter
- Hammer (unnecessary if you’re using box cutters)
- Ruler or tape measure
- Permanent marker
- Garden to water – you should probably be doing all this for a reason and not just because you can 🙂
Once you have all the equipment you need, now you get to wreck some stuff!
Before you start wrecking anything though, you’ll want to do some measuring.
Hook your hose up to your water source and drag it to your garden. Your hose will be laying near the base of your plants, so try to arrange it comfortably along each row. If you have more than one row, you should snake your hose over to the other rows.
The snaking of the hose is less important at this point since you are merely getting a read on how much hose you need to reach your plants. The portion of the hose that isn’t touching any plants doesn’t need to be changed. The section that lays along the rows is what will need to be dealt with.
Once you know where your plants will sit along your hose, you can start by poking or slicing a small hole into the hose where the first plant is. From there, measure your hose out into 3″ sections and mark the segments with the permanent marker.
After you’ve marked all along your hose that lays in your garden, you can start cutting or poking the rest of your holes.
Side note: when you’re hammering your holes with a nail or cutting them with box cutters, don’t get too crazy. You can always go back and make the holes bigger if you need, but if you make them too big, to begin with, you can’t effectively fix them later.
I’d also suggest attempting this with a hot or warm hose. If the hose if warm/hot, it will be easier to work with.
After you have cut or poked holes, you will want to find a way to cut off the end flow on your hose. That way all the water that could be going to your plants doesn’t flow out the end. There are many ways you can do this, but one of the easiest and most effective is to kink the end.
By kinking the end of your hose, you will still be able to use it.
Let’s get back to why you should use a soaker hose in your garden.
Soaker hoses are handy little tools that make watering a less time-consuming task and gets more water to the roots of your plants.
You may be wondering how it can save you time…don’t you still have to sit out there to monitor the amount of water your plants are getting?
No!
You can get a hose timer.
A hose timer will allow you to program your watering schedule. If you want to lightly water your plants 3 times a day 4 days a week, you can program that into the system.
Since you likely know what your garden needs, you can adjust the timer to give your plants what they need. Each timer is different, so ask a home center employee for suggestions.
By getting a timer, creating your homemade soaker hose, and letting them work together for you, you will save time, water, and have healthier plants!