lovegmc

I suppose where you place your soaker hoses depends on what you're growing. For most of my 8x4 raised beds, which are in line with each other the long way in groups of three, I plan to put two strips (not soaker hoses but driplines) one foot away from either side. That works when plants must be spaced 2 feet apart.

In some beds, I'll have double rows of beans climbing a trellis between them. In that case I'll move the two lines closer to each row of beans.

As for protecting your soaker hoses from sun damage, I personally think you should cover them with mulch, not bury them with soil. I think there are warnings about their getting plugged up.

As for cutting the soaker hoses, I imagine you don't have the beds running in a long row and are wondering if you can bend or curl them around. Is that what you mean? Not sure how well you could do that if they're flat! But if you cut them, you'd need to find a lot of fittings to attach them to your main line.

We need a diagram of your raised bed positions!

You should get good coverage by just looping the hose back once, so you have two "lines" in the bed. 18 inches apart is fine. Place the hoses over the soil and cover them with mulch to conserve the water. If you have a 15-foot hose, you won't have to cut it. Works really great, much better than watering by hand!

Here is a link that might be useful: my website

In my 3'x10' raised beds I use 50' soakers and I wrap them back and forth length wise and get about 8" spacing on average this way.

I space them about 6" apart for areas with small plants growing together like lettuce and further apart for large plants like tomatos.

I leave my hoses in one piece, but cutting and joining them can make some sense. In my area I deal with hard water and the soakers do start to clog during the season. As the pores start to clog the pressure on the remaining pores increases and eventually an area tears a bit. This leads to a spray of water rather than the weeping of water and the rest of the hose doesn't operate well until I notice the leak and duct tape it.

If you run into the same problem then cutting and joining the hose can make it easier to just swap out a bad section rather than dealing with repairs to the entire hose.

I loop mine. On one end I do a figure eight and get more water, on the other I just run them parallel.

Cutting and mending a soaker hose is easier than cutting and mending ordinary hose because it is less consequential if the mend leaks as the hose is designed to leak anyway.