Oh Dave we havent had any overwatering issues, only under watering here. The first year went great because I had thinner rows but now with my 3 and 4 feet wide rows, I've had to buy more hosing and that's where I ran into a prob with the pressure. When it rains I dont water. I found a 5 outlet manifold at AceHardware.com. My rows arent the same width on either side of my garden (path runs down middle) but on my schematic I counted 10 times I will have to run a hose from side to side right through the path onto the other bed on other side. Sure wish all my hose lengths were the same too but that's not the case. We will need to get some more closures for the ends of some of them. It wont be perfect and my husband understands what he must do to help me lay the hoses. This is great. Today I took the huge hunk of hosing that are all connected from the top shelf. They were stored by the gardener for the winter, still all connected in one long snake. I unscrewed them and looked at the lengths then looked at my schematic trying to see what length will cover which beds, etc. and how the extra will run into the next bed, etc. Tried to visualize the manifold in the center left with 5 hoses coming off it. I cant see if I will a 4 outlet or 5 outlet but with a 5 I'll be safe. I noted that I could use a Y and another 250 ft rubber hose back to the site if the 5-manifold doesnt work with single hose. However if this 5-manifold fails, I have another spigot on opposite side of home, I could always run another 250 ft hose from that side. Trying to minimize costs is all, I'll try one thing at a time.

I have experienced the same as snappybob and cmoser. We use well water- lots of sediment and lots of minerals. Do you have any kind of filter between the hose spigot and the beginning of the hose connection? It's a very good idea, if not a requirement, if you are using well water. I have used many soaker hoses, different diameters, from the micro soaker tubing to the largest avilable, as well as the most and the least expensive soaker hoses available. To go with them I have used all types of compression fittings (for those who don't know-the soaker hoses push into them tightly,giving you a way to join soaker hoses, connect to black poly feeder tubing, connect to a garden hose etc.). On the 1/4" micro soaker tubing I have used all forms of barbed connectors, (these go into the soaker hose instead of the hose going into the compression fitting). My first experiences with them- I unfortunately buried at least 4 different runs of 100 feet each and at least 1- 50ft run, all just a few inches deep plus mulch, throughout a number of new perennial flower beds. They worked great for about 2 years, then less well for another, then stopped working completely. I had added a fitting at the end of each hose run. It was a compression fitting on one side where the soaker hose went into. The other end of the fitting was (male) threaded to connect to a garden hose, or in my case a cap to screw onto and off. I used it so I could flush the system. The end of the line with this fitting stuck up out of the soil, at the end of each line. This allowed me to make sure the water was running through to the end. Also, I bought an inexpensive pressure gauge with a garden hose connection on it. I can put it on that end fitting and measure the pressure coming out of the end, meaning also along the whole hose- very handy. By the way, if you have a well these are a great idea to stick on your hose spigot or the end of a garden hose to test the PSI pressure coming from your well. Your well water comes through a pressure tank buried near where the well was drilled. Each pressure tank has a preset pressure, ours is (I'm drawing a blank here- maybe 22 psi.?), so the water coming out at the spigot remains a steady (for example) 22 psi. When your pressure tank starts going bad (oh yes.... we've replaced an old one), the pressure can at first become eratic- the pressure gauge check helps check your pressure tank. The end fitting is also great for flushing out loose sediment from the well water. You'd be amazed at the amount of actual crud that comes up through your well! Unfortunately, after a few short years, the hoses stopped working- just a dribble came out. I tried to pull them up to check for leaks in the hose etc., but the groundcover and perennials and tree and vine roots had completely surrounded the hoses- (I had made some really great raised beds, the plants had grown great!) I'd have killed everything if I'd started ripping/tearing the hoses out. So lesson # 1 for me -don't bury soaker hoses with your perennial veggies, flowers etc. So, I cut off all my fittings, (hard plastic so unaffected by the deposits), to disinfect and recycle onto the soakers in the newest veggie gardens- where the hoses were going just under the mulch (MULCH IS GOOD with soakers !!!!) The entangled soaker hoses still remain in the perennial beds, still snaking around just a few inches down. By the way, I attribute the hoses closing up to 2 things- the minerals and sediment in our well water and then the hose itself leaking after getting nicked or sliced with trowels etc. when replacing or adding bulbs & plants to the beds. In that old veggie garden I added an inline filter, just after the hose spigot of the well, and new (better) hoses. But the same thing happened, as far as the mineral deposits in the hoses eventually making them too ineffective to use. I did a lot of research and found there are ways to back flow/flush, or 'soak' your soakers in vinegar or hydrogen oxygen based solutions to try and remove the deposits and get those hoses soaking again, but the time and expense and just plain hassle of it all, after my first experience stopped me. Putting in a new well necessitated, 4 years ago, our moving the entire vegetable garden. It's taken all these years now to clear the trees and then the stumps (we live in the woods) and to get everything together to grow most things in many large pots. The pots sit on recycled plastic covered pallets arranged in bed lengths, on TOP of our hard/no dirt/shale surface. Currently I have (12) 'pallet beds' each 4' wide and 12' long. Each holds a variety of different size pots with different fencing, caging, trellising, insect netting or plastic covering etc, depending on the crop. I have just about finished drilling all the side/at the bottom drainage holes. In the bottom of the pots, covering the holes up the sides, I use either metal screening or landscape cloth to keep the soil in and the bugs out. The next few days after that are for filling the pots with 823 gallons worth of growing mix. Then next week, the 85 seedlings under three tiers of light in the bedroom (I have a patient husband), will find a new home for the season. The week after that (yes I know how late I am)- the veggies being direct seeded will go into their pots. At a 'bad back/knees/neck' 60 years of age - there will be no more double digging raised beds for me, nor any more soaker hoses. Tomorrow I'm ordering drip emitters for all the pots and also for the in ground beds that I have already growing. I'll continue to use an inline 'Y' filter (with even smaller filter holes) and also get the least clogging emitters I can find. Luckily I can still use most of the old fittings etc., since I still have to come from the well spigot to a garden hose, to black feeder poly pipes, to the small tubing, to the emitters. As long as I match the size of the feeder poly pipes to the size of the old soaker hose and use the same size drip emitter micro tubing as I used for the micro soaker hoses, I can use the same compression fittings and barb fittings. Then I'm only out the cost of the soaker hoses themselves. But no more long runs of soaker hoses for me- not with well water. Hope this helps. Good luck to you. Rebecca

Forgot to add that I run all soaker hoses open, when I attach to the Y to water. So all four soaker hoses are working at once. I don't have time to check every hour or two, see if each hose is wet enough now for plantings. I was doing that with the sprinklers. WAY too time consuming and why I went to soaker hoses. My hoses are long, 100ft each in most cases. I found just the soaker tubing in 100ft lengths, laid it out and put ends on to make my own hoses. No splices! And I am running water to all four of them at once, in each bed, with the 4-way, homemade Y connector. Maybe you only have two or three hoses in a bed, so just one or two Y connector would work for that. Use the Ys to make what suits your needs. My plastic Ys seem to be wide, no interference when screwed together. Again, I run my soaker hoses on for longer times, sometimes overnight. This is what allows water pressure to build in soakers, seep out and deeply water the plants hose is running alongside. Even with the well, faucet not on full open, the soakers get enough pressure to water their plants well. Just putting my experiences out, maybe someone can use part of the information for their own benefit. The Ys allow the whole bed to be done at once, with the least amount of handling, checking. Feeding all the soakers in a bed from one point, using homemade or purchased connector with multiple attachments, will make things much easier for the gardener as Mindy pointed out. I love my plants, but that constant sprinkler or soaker change for watering was too much bother. Took all the fun out with timing it. MAYBE I have too many garden beds! Reading this thread, I found people unhappy with the drip irrigation! Surprising, since that sounded like the epitome of systems from magazines and TV coverage. Glad to know before investing.

I think those are the same hoses. No, they're not cotton, they just feel like fabric - very flexible compared to the rubbery ones. Thanks for the link, it's good to know what they're made out of (Nylon-coated PVC mesh) and that they are meant to work at low pressure. Of course I've been blasting the water through them. Mindy - I've always left most of my rubber soakers out over the winter, just removed the end caps, but I lose 2 or 3 each year, either to a careless shovel in spring or some animal takes a little bite, probably looking for water; or maybe water gets stuck in the hose and rips it when it freezes. Katy, your irrigation system makes me SO envious! Do you use timers on this system or are the valves all opened and closed by hand? It still has to beat dragging hoses around! For an upcoming trip, I've swathed my whole yard with soakers, and was planning to add timers - 4 at least - since DH will NOT remember to turn them on or off. Sorry all but I'm praying that it rains on the Cape, for the whole month of June.