Storing one garden hose for winter is pretty easy. You drain it and wind it into a coil. But if you do extensive watering and you have invested in as many as eight 100-footers like I have, it is not so easy. Every year I tried to carefully coil each hose into a tight coil on the ground and then stack the coils. They get all twisted while coiling them, then in the spring, uncoiling them usually turns each coil into a knotted pile.

Of course you can buy carts with a drum and crank which I'm sure work well but each costs at least $40 and holds one hose. At that rate, eight would cost $320. That's as much as the hoses cost in the first place. Then you need to store the carts somewhere all summer.

The following is a way that I devised to roll up multiple hoses together and in the spring simply unroll them all together into a straight line.

Step 1: Materials Needed

2 each 4-port plastic manifold (for 8 hoses)

large barrel or 55-gallon drum

thin rope

Step 2: Prepare for Rolling

Lay your hoses next to each other in a straight line, all with the female connector ends together. Connect up to 4 hoses to a manifold. Add a second manifold if needed. In my case I had six hoses to store so I only used 3 ports on each manifold.

Step 3: Start Rolling Up

I realized after starting my rolling that it would be easier to somehow fasten the manifolds to the drum to make a tighter roll, but I managed without doing that. Also important is to probably use duct tape to temporarily fasten 2 pieces of rope across the drum 180 degrees apart before starting to roll, to bundle the hoses on opposite sides of the drum after they are rolled. I also didn't do that in these photos but I will next year.

Step 4: Roll to the End

Start rolling the drum and try to keep the hoses tight and together on the drum. When you get to the far end, use the pieces of rope that you temporarily taped to the drum and tie and bundle the roll so it won't slip off the ends of the drum. Cover it for winter with a tarp or plastic. I figured that 8 hoses weight about 100 pounds so it is nice to have a drum to roll it to where you want to store it.

In the spring, untie the bundles and unroll it back into a straight line like you started with. There will be no knots or mess like with making individual coils.