Best Garden Hose Water Filters

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Should I Filter The Water Going Into My Garden?

Heck Yeah! A resounding yes!!!

Most people would think, “why would I need a filter for your garden?“. When I first heard this too, I was like, really??? Yeppers!

So, you might already be filtering the water in your home or purchasing water that is already filtered. If you are not you really should be! I’ve written about choosing the best reverse osmosis system and the best water distillers found here, What Is The Best Reverse Osmosis Water Filter System? Best Of 2018 and Top 10 Water Distillers 2018. The cleaner the water the better your health.

Man in his infinite wisdom or lack of it has added chemicals in the water to help clean it from bacteria, as well as adding fluoride to it. Some of these chemicals are needed to provide clean safe drinking water, while others are not. These chemicals can have a real negative impact on our health over a long period of time.

Why You Need A Garden Filter

First off, if you have good well water either in a city or rurally, you probably don’t need a hose filter, as you will already have good water. But if you have municipal water supplied by a city (like I do), it is more likely you will need a garden hose filter.

Why is this? Well, chemicals are put into the water to kill bacteria and microbes to prevent people from getting sick from drinking the water. Chemicals like chlorine and a whole host of other chemicals.

These chemicals are not good for the microbes in your garden soil because most of the chemicals are used to kill these microbes and bacteria in your pipes. So, when you are watering your garden with treated water, the chemicals will likely kill the helpful microorganisms present in your garden. This is also called soil biologics. These little organisms that live in your soil are paramount to plants thriving.

Having good soil biologics is paramount to having a thriving garden, as well as healthier fruits and vegetables.

If you’re using city water you could be really working against yourself if you don’t filter this water. While plants will still grow with treated water, your garden soil is not fully optimized. As every time you water your garden with treated water it is killing the soil biology.

What Do They Filter?

Depending on the type of filter being used:

• Pesticides
• Herbicides
• Heavy Metals
• Mercury
• Dissolved Solids
• Volatile Organic Compounds
• Chlorine
• Chloramines
• Sand
• Silt
• Scale
• Rust

A major bummer is most filters will not remove fluoride. As the size of the fluoride molecule is extremely small and extremely hard to filter. The best methods for removing fluoride are reverse osmosis and distilling water. These two methods are very time-consuming and impractical to water a garden with.

Tips On Using A Garden Filter For Your Garden

Ultimate Filtering

If you want to increase the filtering of your garden water, you can with a little effort run two filters or even more, inline on your garden hose. This will probably have you buying additional hose connectors at your local hardware store but is a great way to get the best possible water for those willing to spend a little more for two or more filters instead of using one filter. I would also assume that the first filter from the mainline would need to be replaced before the last filter due to the burden of the initial filter handling.

The optimal system would have from the house first, a sediment filter of at least 5 microns, to filter any sediment and avoid clogging your granular carbon filters. This would increase the lifespan of your granular carbon filters as well. Then to run a granular carbon filter through the sediment filter.

I don’t recommend a carbon block filter as this clogs faster than the other methods. It works well but has a shorter lifespan.

How To Tell When You Need A New Filter

When do you need to replace a filter? Basically, when the water flow slows way down. This is a good indicator of a filter that needs replacing.

Things To Consider As Well

Maintenance on a garden filter is very little, some brands recommend back-flushing. This is where you hook up the filter in reverse and run water through for a set amount of time.

Get a couple of garden hose quick connect fittings from your local hardware store. This greatly helps with avoiding stripping the filter threads as these are made from generally plastic. You will need at least two of these per filter.

Avoid attaching this directly to the outside spigot, as any bumping of the filter could easily break the threads as well. I like having my attached right before the sprayer, at the end of the hose, or anywhere but right next to the spigot. Also be carefully threading this onto the hose, as I have read of many people stripping the threads on their filters.

The gallons filter per device used is approximate, as this will greatly vary depending on the water you use. The more impurities in your water the faster the filter will become clogged. The cleaner the water the longer the filter will last. Usually, the filters will last one growing season.

Soil Friendly Filters

I hope to list some of the most popular water inline garden hose filters and detail some of their important features to best inform you of what filter is best for your water condition.

Clean Water Fun Garden Hose Filter

This is an inline garden hose filter that will fit any standard garden hose. An important note here is this has independently be tested by a third party to remove Chlorine, Chloramines, VOCs, Pesticides, and Herbicides that are typically found in common home water supplies. The main filter component in this unit is coconut fiber, which has been steam-activated. This activation process creates millions of micro-pores. The housing on this is made from durable polypropylene.

• Filters 10,000 gallons.

Boogie-Blue Basic

This as the name implies, is compared to the other Boogie Blue filters, the simplest of the three garden filters that they offer. This uses an activated carbon block filter membrane and has no KDF membrane. KDF membrane allows for more filtering of chloramine, as chloramine is harder to filter.

This is my opinion would make a great first filter if you were going to be using multiple inline filters to water your garden. This would extend the life of any filter placed after the Boogie-Blue Basic.

• Filters up to 15,000 gallons.

Boogie Blue Classic (also called just Boogie Blue)

This filter has a high percentage of removing Chlorine (99+%) and chloramine (87%) compounds, as this uses a quality carbon filter and a KDF-content filter

• Approximately up to 35,000 gallons.

Boogie-Blue Plus+

This is the top-of-the-line filter offered by the Boogie Brew company. Having a dual catalytic-carbon and KDF membrane for increase filtration. This is a pumped upped version of the Boogie Blue Classic, having almost 6 more ounces of carbon and 11 ounces of more KDF material. The carbon material is also better, as it is a Resin-Ion Exchange, which is better at capturing heavy metals.

• Filter 45,000 gallons of water.

Camco 40691 GardenPURE Cabon Water Filter

This filter uses a GAC (Granular Activated Carbon) to filtrate water. It has a wide body to provide better water flow. It also has a 100-micron fiber barrier.

This would be a great purchase for someone with a small amount of water needed, small garden or flower beds, as this is cheaper but has a lower lifespan.

• No gallons gave.

Now Get Watering Your Garden With Better Quality Water

I’ve seen the very positive results from using a garden filter in my plant’s growth, this, in turn, means the soil biology is better. This doesn’t take a lot of understanding to realize spraying water on gardens and plants that are treated with chemicals will kill helpful active biology in your soil. But most people never think of this, including me. It wasn’t until I was informed about this did I learn of this.

If you have a favorite garden filter please share below, as I love learning and sharing products that work. Thanks!

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