Garden Hose Instructions: A Victory Garden Wartime Nine-Point Plan

May 12, 1943

The Belvidere Daily Republican offered home gardeners a pragmatic sermon on hose-keeping during wartime rubber shortages—nine sensible steps to keep the water flowing when vegetables were a civic duty.

If mindful of the rubber shortage, you're wondering how to coddle your
garden hose through its important Victory-garden job this year, an expert here has a "nine-point program" for hose care that may mean the difference between a backyard farmer's success or failure.

W. S. Richardson, manager of the industrial products division of B. F. Goodrich, outlines his nine points as follows:

1. Never drive a car over your hose.
2. Don't leave it lying in the sun
3. Coil it neatly and hang it up.
4. But not on a spike or sharp-edged stick.
5. Be sure it's drained first, for water left in the hose will damage the fabric reinforcement.
6. Don't turn off the water at the nozzle.
7. Don't try to stop the flow by doubling the hose back on itself for either way may give you a 'blow-out.'
8. Don't drag a hose over sharp stones in a rock garden.
9. Don't pick an oily spot on the driveway or floor of your garage as the place to coil it.

He concludes, "[Oil] destroys most rubber, and you might end up with a leaky hose and a once-promising Victory garden 'burned up' by drought.

Plain advice, handsomely useful—because even the best-behaved beans cannot climb without a little water and care.