As long as you have good water pressure and flow, they work. They won't work on low-flow systems such as drip, and often won't work even if you restrict the flow with certain spray patterns from adjustable nozzles, watering wands, etc.

But, should do the basic job for you.

OK, I purchased locally an ACE fertilizer sprayer (which is the licensed for ACE version of the Gilmour). This has a hose end on both sides.

So now I have my spigot -> short hose -> two zone water timer .> timer zone A has the ACE/Gilmour -> Y splitter -> hoses to the two strawberry towers.

zone 2 of the timer has a hose leading to a Y splitter leading to 2 soaker hoses in the traditional strawberry beds (also known as rabbit feeders).

So, after much fussing I think I have the Gilmour/ACE branch with an appropriate flow rate to each tower through the fertilizer feeder. The strawberries are blooming, so it's good that the feeding will now be constant.

I'm probably still over-watering the strawberries - no big deal since it drains right out, but I am getting some flooding at the side of the garden. I'll have to actually watch it at 6PM one night soon and adjust the duration of the watering.

Thanks for everyone's help. For a car ride and $10 I (think I) solved my problem. Of course, while there I bought a 4 valve brass splitter - one can never have too many hose attachments ; so of course my retail therapy was slightly more expensive than absolutely necessary.

Andrew

Well, perhaps I spoke too soon.

Hooked up as above (spigot, short hose, water timer, short hose, ACE/Gilmour, short hose, splitter, hoses to strawberries) the system doesn't work.

Rather than shoot water through the hoses, it backs up and sprays around the stem of the ACE/Gilmour can.

By around, I don't mean the threads leak, I mean the section closest to the spigot leaks - almost by design. I dug out an old Miracle Grow sprayer of the same design but smaller and it 'leaks' in the same exact manner.

Is this a design issue - ie it doesn't want to push the water through because it doesn't have pressure or something? Is there a way to fix this?

I had the Gilmour/ACE attached directly to the timer and then the Y attached directly to the Gilmour - this leaked in the same way.

In either case there was no water coming out either of the two hoses at the tower top.

Suggestions?

If I have this problem with this hookup, is it reasonable to assume that the siphon solutions will have the same problem? I really need to inject fertilizer since I water twice each day and don't have time to do it by hand.

Thanks all.

Andrew