we are growing vegetables. what kind of hose is best? i noticed there are 'drinking water' hoses. does that mean regular hoses might have toxic chemicals in them? i saw some hoses say their coupling is lead-free. is that good enough? or are the toxic chemicals in the hose itself?
What is a safe hose for watering vegetables
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IMO a garden hose of any kind that is on the market now is safe. I am not quite dead yet and I have been drinking out of them for decades. I have never seen any hose coupling that was not either plastic or brass and there are no weld/braze joints in them either. The main thing I would worry about are cheap hoses that kink easily or that sunlight damages quickly. Cheap is cheap and you get what you pay for.
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The only real issue is decomposition due to uv light and heat. True of affordable plastics everywhere. Leaving a hose out in the sun is a problem. Hot water can hurt plants as well as attract even more heat and scald the plants. Water loves to soak up heat. Regular polymers like epoxy fail around 200f degrees. They soften prior of course. In a deep dry summer our grass shows me 125f unless I water it. Dark materials and black cars show me 175f, which is getting up there for a hot day.