Soakers are a great way to water, but when they leak here’s a short video tutorial about how to repair a garden soaker hose, a quick fix for under $2!
If you’ve read any of my gardening tips about creating an easy care garden throughout the years of this blog, you know that soaker hoses are a key component to making gardening easier (click the following affiliate link to see what I’m talking about: Miracle Grow soaker hose, though I’ve never used that brand [or anything of theirs for that matter in my organic garden!] so I can’t attest to it specifically).
Watering at the base of the plants – and not paths – is also best for your plants, providing a deep watering that can’t be replicated with hand watering and without the loss of water that comes with overhead watering. Of course these benefits (and more) can be had with any type of ground watering system, whether it’s drip systems, automatic in-ground, or soakers.
But I love soakers because they are cheaper than the other two options and they are SO easy (in my early days of gardening I bought a drip kit – holy cow, that was beyond me: connectors, different hoses, and the dreaded flow regulator…yikes, I got rid of that quickly!). With a soaker it consists of :
- buy it
- uncoil and let it sit in the sun a few days (key if you don’t want to fight it to go where you want in your beds)
- remove the ridiculous “flow regulator” plastic disc they all come with now (they didn’t when I started using them- it’s the blue disc pictured in the hose link above) – it will take days to water with those in place! I find it much easier to regulate the flow myself with the spigot.
- lay it where you want, snaking it around or near your plants
- hook it to your hose (affiliate link: preferably with easy quick-connect hose ends)
- turn the water on and let it run for 2-4 hours, depending on the flow and how dry your beds are (check to see how they water with your flow)
That’s it, which is why they’ve worked for us for years. The one drawback with soakers is that after a few seasons, especially if you leave them out all year like we do, they will spring leaks (occasionally we’ve gotten one or two bad brands of soakers that start leaking within a few weeks and we always try to stay away from that brand after that).
The good news is it’s an easy fix – one that Brian has done many times to repair our soakers. Since I sing the praises of soakers, we thought it would be a good idea to provide a quick tutorial to show just how easy it is to fix them. In just a few minutes and for less than a couple dollars, your soaker can be working again to make your life easier!
Watch how to repair a garden soaker hose:
MY LATEST VIDEOSDo you use soakers like me?
Disclosure: this post contains affiliate links and by clicking on them you help support AOC at no extra cost to you – thanks so much! (You can always read our entire disclosure page here.)
Subscribe to Organize, Plan, Cook & Beautify Your Home with Free Printables
Subscribe to AOC's popular weekly Newsletter full of useful information, behind-the-scenes updates, and occasional offers AND get access to this printable in the VIP Subscriber Library that also includes eBooks, checklists, organizing helps, and recipes - with more added regularly. We'll never send spam - read our Privacy Policy here.
Can you tell me where I can purchase some of the soaker hose mending kits? I live in the NW and haven’t been able to find
them anywhere, not even on Amazon.
Well, they aren’t very cheap anymore, but I did find this on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2W3qKSH You need to look for “hose mender.”