Water tank on trailer with large wheels.

The best hose is radiator tubing my husband installed. I just leave it out and drag that heavy thing all over the place. lol

I ordered this featherweight hose. I'm also ruminating over a water tank on a garden cart and someone elsewhere suggested the coiled air hose from Harbor Freight with fittings changed.

You might check the pressure on your outdoor faucet too, and make sure it is not too high. At our place the outdoor faucet (by design) has a higher pressure to accomodate the needs of rural people (watering livestock, irrigating large areas, etc.) and the pressure reducer is located at the area right before the plumbing enters the house....so the house has the appropriately lower water pressure but the outdoor faucet has high enough pressure to blow out thin or lightweight hoses all the time. You have to be conscious of this and keep the water flow very low, or use a pressure reducer at the outdoor faucet when you hook up hoses and sprinklers, or you'll blow out sprinklers right and left as well. There are times I like having the higher pressure (it is great if you're putting out a grass fire or brush fire) but I do have to remember not to turn the water up too high if I am using a sprinkler to water the lawn.

One of my favorite ways to lightly water flats of seedlings in the greenhouse or garden is to fill up a large plastic trash can with water and put a lid on it. To water, I just take the lid off the can and dip a lightweight watering can into it to fill it. I then can handwater the flats in the greenhouse, or newly transplanted seedlings in the garden. With the one in the garden, I can leave the lid off and let it collect rainfall as a rain barrel. With the one in the greenhouse, I leave the lid on so it doesn't fill up with insects like mosquitoes and June bugs. You also could use an actual rain barrel with a spigot on it, but that spigot would be lower on the barrel and you'd have to bend over to fill the watering can, so I prefer to dip the can into the barrel of water and just scoop out what I need.

I hate dragging a hose into the greenhouse so prefer the watering can method, but to make it easy, I don't want to have to walk back and forth to the faucet with a watering can in my hand and that's why having a trash can filled with water works for me.

I have one of those big blue barrels full of water in the green house, but the lid does't come off, we just dump it when it is time to take down the green house, Maybe next year I will replace it with something with a lid. I want rain barrels, but DH has been resistant. He wants to turn the blue barrels into planters.

I have wondered if the pressure was up too high. I have this great water wand with a dozen settings on it. I had it set to "flood" which just dribbles water out instead of spray. I have no idea how to test the pressure on the fawcet.

I'm trying to picture Bon's radiator hose. Doesn't that usually come in short lengths?

Amy, looks like you found a great price since a good hose cost that much these days. I paid $35 for a 50 foot hose which wasn't long enough. I moved that one to my garden and bought a 100 foot hose which was $50. I would never have believed that I would have to pay 50 bucks for a water hose. Hopefully it is good enough to last for awhile.

Amy, You check the water pressure with a water pressure gauge, available at places like Lowe's or Home Depot for about $10.00. That's a nifty little hose reel/hose combo you got. I hope the reel is heavy enough that it doesn't fall over every time you tug on the hose. I have liked everything I've ever bought from the same place you bought you hose and the things I've purchased have seemed to be very good to great quality.

Carol, When we moved here, we spent what seemed like a small fortune on water hoses. After two cheaper ones failed, we bought Sears Craftsman black rubber heavy-duty waterhoses with a Lifetime Guarantee. That was probably around 2000. We are still using those hoses, and have at least 300' of them. They are so heavy that they are a nuisance to drag around, especially if you are dragging them a great distance, but we leave them outside in all weather and the only one that has "failed"apparently got cut by something (I don't know what, and no one confessed to damaging it, but I suspect a mower or string trimmer slashed it). Sears replaced it, no questions asked. I have heard that the hoses they sell nowadays are not as high-quality as the ones we bought so long ago, but if I needed to buy a new hose, I'd buy a Craftsman, even if Sears may not be around in the long term to honor the Lifetime Guarantee.

A couple of times I have gotten tired of dragging around a heavy hose (we do have hose reels but then you have to wind the hose around them and drag them along behind you) and have purchased a cheap, plastic water hose at a big box store and the hose didn't last any time at all. I wish they could make a lightweight hose that is sturdy and strong and would truly last, but I suspect they cannot or at least they will not.

Dawn

The real rubber hoses are supposed to be the most durable. Lowes has a 5 year guaranteed fabric covered hose we looked at today. Lighter than regular hose heavier than the hose that just broke. ($40). We bought a post style hose hanger with a faucet attachment today. We have several long hoses, and some that could be repaired and pieced together. A heavy hose can be attached to that faucet and a lighter or shorter hose run from there. It's all a work in progress. The more beds I have, the more options I need for watering. (He's built 2 more flower beds, we put the vicious blackberry in the ground, there are straw bales on both sides of the yard and I keep looking around for more places to put beds.)

Six days later, my order has arrived. I thought it was good timing for free shipping! I've been sick with vertigo. I will take pics when I feel up to testing it. The reel thing is kind of flimsy, but heavier plastic would have defeated the purpose. I believe I can set the reel on a table to wind it up. DH went and bought new regular hoses, too. we had one of those y shaped attachments on the faucet so you can attach 2 hoses. It started spraying from an odd place, not where the hoses attach, so I think we must have heavier than normal pressure from that faucet. We didn't find a pressure regulator or measurer last weekend. Will keep looking for that.

I used this yesterday. The hose is not bad. Not thrilled with the reel. On the other hand, I had vertigo, so the fact I could use it under those conditions says something. Solo cup for size, that is a 50 foot hose there

I think dragging heavy hoses thru the garden just goes with the territory. I have tried several of the light weight variety and they all fail. I get mine at Sam's they are 120' (kind of an odd size) and heavy duty. I have a hand full of cheap ones that I bought after the tornado and I hate them. They kink constantly and if you pinch them off they spit at that point. I will be so glad when that are all gone.

This hose leaked, and the reel was difficult and the handle kept coming off. We are looking at sending it back. We found a pressure gauge, 90 psi from outdoor faucet. Other research I've done seems to think that is too high, especially if using a wand like I like I enjoy, that will stop the flow out of the hose when trigger is not engaged. One source recommended a pressure regulator designed for RVs. I will be considering that.

90 psi is pretty high for outdoors, but also easily controlled by not turning on the faucet all the way. No wonder you keep having hoses blow out. Tim said that the pressure reducer we installed at the point just before the water enters the house is 50 psi, but neither of us remembers how high our outside faucet's PSI is. Our water spigot stands alone across the driveway from the house and that's normally where we hook up a hose or irrigation system. The two outdoor faucets that are attached to the house have the lower flow since their water comes from inside, and they are so low compared to the stand-alone water faucet that I always never use them, except for soaker hoses that water the soil around the foundation during periods of drought.

We do have to be careful when we hook up any irrigation system or device to the standalone water faucet out in the yard---it will blow out any hose, dripline or sprinkler if you don't use a pressure reducer valve or if you just turn it up as high as it will go. And, having it turned up that high makes the water flow fast so it is easy to run up a huge water bill in a very short time. That is not a mistake you make more than once.