Take a Break with Some Garden Hose Fun

A good garden hose is a serious gardening tool, but once in a while, it’s nice to take a break and have some fun. Enjoy this collection of garden hose humor and fun things to do with your garden hose.

What Kind of Socks Does a Gardener Wear?

Garden hose, of course! If he’s feeling really fancy, he might opt for a coil garden hose in a bright color. For every day wear, he’s got a choice of 1/2 inch garden hose, 3/4 inch garden hose or even 1 inch water hose.

You might be a gardener if you can amuse yourself for more than an hour with a garden hose. In fact, we’d posit that you can’t possibly be a gardener if you can’t think of at least a dozen ways to amuse yourself with a garden hose. Here’s a list of fun things to do with your garden hose, either instead of or while watering your garden.

Investing in a new garden hose for your actual gardening tasks? Don’t throw your old hose out. Cap the end and poke a dozen or so holes in it with a nail. Lay out a curving trail on the lawn and turn on the water. Let the kids go nuts in the spray from your makeshift sprinkler. For even more fun, encourage them to play patch-the-hose with duct tape while the water is spraying, or stomp-the-spray.

Liven up your next pool party with a game of water limbo. Use a high quality garden hose fitted with a variable trigger spray and keep the stream in a tight, focused spray. It’s a great way to encourage people to get wet and have fun.

Got two garden hoses and a Y-attachment? Connect them both to the spigot, break out a couple of beach balls and mark out a finish line at the other end of the line. The object is to propel the beach ball from the start line to the finish line using nothing but the stream of water from a garden hose. You can add multiple variations to the rules. If you’ve only got one garden hose, use a timer to see who can keep the beach ball up in the air the longest, using just the spray from the garden hose.

If you’re going to be using that old garden hose to amuse the kids, you’ll need to replace it with a new hose. Check out the newest styles of garden hoses available, including polyurethane garden hoses, heated garden hose and the coil garden hose that’s ideal for small spaces.

Getting Your Garden Hose Under Control

Now that we’re a couple of months into summer, there’s a good chance that you’re getting a bit fed up with your garden hose If you’re like a lot of folks, you’ve probably spent almost as much time untangling the blessed thing as you have using it for its intended purpose, whether that’s transporting water to your thirsty plants, giving the kids a good soak-down on a hot afternoon or washing the car to keep it looking spiffy-clean. In the worst case scenario, you may be in the market to replace your garden hose after running over it with the lawn mower or because it’s sprung more leaks than your kitchen colander. If you’re as tired of wrestling with your garden hose as we are, here are a few tips to help you get it under control and keep it that way.

Wind It Up
Garden hose reels are a gardener’s best friend. A good quality garden hose reel gives you a place to store your hose when it’s not in use – which actually does a lot more than just keep your garden hose from tripping you when you’re on your way to the car. When you keep your hose on a hose reel, you minimize its contact with the ground, which reduces the chance that it will rot. You keep bugs out of it, and, bonus – you automatically drain the hose so that standing water isn’t soaking up all the nasty chemicals the inside of your hose may be treated with.  (Of course, if you choose a drinking safe garden hose to begin with, you don’t have to worry about lead and other nasty stuff in your vegetable patch.)

Prevent Kinking
Kinks are hazardous to your hose’s health, and not just because they drive you crazy enough to stomp the silly thing into the ground. Inexpensive garden hoses are the most prone to the problem, but even higher quality hoses can end up with their kinks set into them as if you’d pressed them in with a hot iron. There are a few ways to prevent kinking. The first is to choose a portable garden hose reel that you can wheel around with you. The less length you’re dragging around with you, the less likely it is to get doubled on itself and get kinked up.

Your other option is to choose a garden hose that is less prone to kinking in the first place. A good coil garden hose, for example, is specifically designed not to kink up on you, so you can expect it to last longer.

If you’re tired of a garden hose that kinks up and fights with you whenever you turn on the water, check out the selection of garden hose reels you can buy online and get your hose under control once and for all.

Things to Look for in a New Garden Hose

When it’s time to replace your garden hose, it’s tempting to just pop into the nearest big box home improvement store and buy the cheapest hose on the shelf. If you do that, prepare yourself to make that trip an annual pilgrimage. A cheap garden hose may not even last out the entire season. If you wnt to get the most out of your money – and the best for your garden and outdoor chores – take the time to find the best kind of garden hose for your needs. Here are a few of the important things you should consider when buying a new garden or water hose.

Environmental Conditions
Will your new hose be baking in the sun for hours and hours? Keep in mind that heat and ultraviolet rays contribute to the decay of most materials. Look for a polyurethane garden hose or a drinking safe garden hose that is guaranteed not to leach chemicals and heavy metals – used to treat many garden hoses – into the water you use to water your vegetables and fill your swimming pools.

Likewise, if you’ll be expecting your garden hose to deal with temperatures that routinely fall below freezing, choose a heated garden hose. They come in all sizes from a 1/2 inch garden hose to 1 inch water hose, and lengths from 25 to 100 feet,  so that you can get exactly the size heated garden hose you need to water your animals, hose down vehicles and outbuildings and handle all the other outdoor winter tasks for which you require a hose.

Garden Hose Size
Pick the right size for your garden hose, both width-wise and diameter. Keep in mind that every foot your water has to travel from the faucet to the nozzle decreases the water pressure you’ll get at the business end of the hose, so it makes sense to buy a garden hose that is just as long as you need and no longer. In fact, many experts recommend that if you occasionally need to reach a further distance – say that once a season patio pressure washing – it’s better to buy two shorter hoses and attach the second one when you need more length. It will save you maneuvering an oversize garden hose most of the time to have that convenience once during the summer.

In most cases, a 1/2 inch garden hose to 3/4 inch garden hose will be the right diameter. Keep in mind that a 3/4 inch garden hose delivers twice as much water in the same time as a 1/2 inch water hose, and pick the one that works best for your needs.

Pick the right garden hose this year and you won’t have to buy another one next year.