These rain barrels are awesome! This is my second purchase just to help make sure we have enough garden water in case we get a dry summer. I have raised bed gardens and I took some old garden hoses and clamped it onto the bottom spout. Then took the hose and ran it to all of my raised beds to make sure it would reach and then cut it off. Now to water I stick the end of the hose into a raised bed go back and turn the valve on and go water. When done just go back and shut the valve off. I plan on adding a hose to the overflow pipe so that can run into another barrel and maybe some kind of shutoff on the end of the hose too.
I am lucky that my barrels are just a bit higher than what my raised beds are set at too.
Plus, you can easily fill watering cans at the valve about half way down.
Word of caution - just make sure the rain barrel is set on a solid surface and very level!