The Bumbling Gardener’s garden has recently been outfitted with a sleek set of soaker hoses. As a complement to the rain barrel, which does not provide enough pressure to reach to the end of the soaker hose, we’ll water on a weekly basis and supplement with the rain barrel, on the assumption that we’ll get enough rain during the season to do so.

(I now actually hope for the occasional rainy, summer day. This is VERY odd.)

A quick search of the Internet turned up numerous sites that explain how to use a soaker hose, most making it much more complicated that it needs to be, with timers and pressure gauges, etc. In a nutshell:

• Wrap the hoses around your garden
• Feel free to cover them with dirt or mulch
• They have about a 12″ – 18″ reach
• Soak less frequently for longer so the water goes deep and so do the plant roots

My favourite thing is, you save about 70% of the water you’d use if you watered with a sprinkler and none of it evaporates into the air. I thought the claims were a bit far-fetched, but site after site says the same thing — and what do I know, anyway?

A few notes…

The first hose I bought promptly cracked at the nozzle end, but it came with a 4 year guarantee and the store happily exchanged it.

When I first laid out the hose it was pretty stiff and unwieldy, so I held it in place with lengths of trimmed tree branches from the compost pile, sunk into the soil. Now that it’s had water run through it a few times, it’s fully pliable and I’ve been able to remove the sticks and reposition as necessary for optimal coverage.