I bought this black, 100-foot garden hose at a garage sale two years ago for $10 (great deal!), but I never used it. I usually just hand water my flowers and vegetables with water from my rain barrel. But my newly planted cedar trees need plenty of water over the next few weeks to establish their root systems before winter, so I decided to make a soaker hose out of my unused garden hose rather than buy one 💪
The dark color helps it blend in well with the surrounding soil, and the length was perfect for watering both rows of cedars as well as some flower beds around my shed! 🙌
My new soaker hose reduces water waste by delivering water right to the roots of my plants. I’ll be adding leaf mulch soon to further reduce the amount of water lost from evaporation 👍 My soaker hose also saves me lots of time since hand watering 65 cedar trees every other day would be very tedious! 😅 And since the soaker hose remains stationary, I don’t have to drag a heavy garden hose around my yard every time I want to water. I just turn on the spigot and set a one-hour timer so I don’t forget to turn it off! 😜
Here’s how I created my DIY soaker hose irrigation system. The only thing I had to buy was a hose end cap! 😃
DIY soaker hose from old garden hose
Supplies
Old garden hose
Hose end cap
Sharp object for poking holes
Instructions
1. Lay your hose around the plants you want to water. Figure out how you’ll connect your soaker hose to your water source. Turn on the water to make sure everything’s connected properly. Turn off water.
2. Poke holes through one side of the old garden hose every three inches starting at least 18 inches from both ends. (I only poked holes where the hose was in front of the plants I wanted to water; no sense in watering my shed!). My hose has a yellow stripe so I poked all my holes along that yellow line. This makes it easy to know where the water will come out when you’re positioning the hose. I used a hammer and awl to make the holes, but you could also use a big nail or a drill. My hammer head was three inches wide, which made it very easy to space the holes evenly 😉
3. Screw on the hose end cap and turn on the water! You should have water spraying out of every hole. If not, repoke them.
4. Reposition the hose close to the plants so as not to waste any water. When you want to water your garden beds, turn on the spigot so water is slowly trickling out of all the holes. Happy watering!