First we'll let you know what we don't sell and what we think is a waste of money to buy. That would be the type of "fertilizer injectors" that amount to gadgets about the size of a large kitchen blender that purport to fertilize your lawn automatically if you throw in some fertilizer wafers, capsules or powder and then water your lawn. They generally rely on your normal water flow through the "injector" to mix and then evenly inject (without pressure from a pump) the fertilizer supposedly in that little wafer onto your lawn... and of course you have to believe a wafer or two or three is enough fertilizer... have you heard enough? My opinion is it just isn't workable.
Next let's get into what any good quality pump-powered fertilizer injector can actually do for your lawn. All fertilizers used in sprinkler system fertilizer injectors must inherently be water soluble without exception. Nitrogen is readily water soluble, so is the primary, and sometimes only ingredient in water soluble fertilizers.
Nitrogen, shows in the above-ground growth and greeness of your lawn is. And incidentally, nitrogen is the the first number in the three numbers always used to describe fertilizer. A 10-8-8 fertilizer has a 10 content of nitrogen and 8 each of phosphorus and potash. Potash is very important because it is what stimulates root growth. But potash is not readily soluble, so all water soluble fertilizers are inherently lacking in potash. In other words, your grass will always need more than what any water soluble fertilizer can deliver.
You will notice that our GrassSoGreen Liquid Fertilizer Concentrate is an 18-3-3 fertilizer. So, using what we have just read, it is easy to determine that an 18-3-3 fertilizer is also a high-nitrogen variety great for greening up the lawn and keeping it green through the summer, but for long term success in raising a healthy attractive drought-resistant lawn, we also need to add potash that is in short supply in any water soluble fertilizer, including GrassSoGreen.
So what needs to be done to supplement GrassSoGreen to raise a healthy green lawn? Your lawn needs to be fertilized at least once yearly using a good granular slow release (read the label) fertilizer such as a 10-10-10 or 8-8-8 every spring applied with a spreader. Ideally you will repeat that again towards the end of the season, thusly allowing the roots to develop a good underground base to support the rapid Spring and Summer above-ground green growth.
The rest of the Spring growing season and through the Summer, you are good to go with liquid fertilizer injected through your lawn sprinkler system, the high nitrogen will work to build and support support a thick beautiful green lawn. It will provide your lawn with that extra supply of nitrogen it needs throughout the hot months when many lawns begin to yellow because they are lacking the large amounts of nitrogen every lawn needs during those summer rapid-growth months, and it will do it without much effort on your part and without burning the lawn.
The bottom line is that a fertilizer injector is an excellent investment and great lawn tool, but needs to be used correctly in conjunction with an occasional (once or twice yearly) spreading of a granular slow release fertilizer containing a balanced potash content.
The GrassSoGreen injector we sell on our site is built by American Hydro right here in America. It utilizes a high quality pump to suck pre-mixed fertilizer concentrate from a 15 gallon storage tank then uses positive pump pressure to inject that liquid fertilizer concentrate mixture directly and evenly into the pressure line of your irrigation system.
You're off-the-hook as far as mixing the fertilizer too; you just dump the correct amount of liquid fertilizer concentrate (comes in gallon containers) into the storage tank, fill the tank with water, give a little stir, put the cover on and you're done for another month.
One reason we were reluctant to offer fertilizer units on our site was because many of the current gadgets that proliferate on the market use supposedly condensed fertilizer (tablets, wafers, ect) and there have been a multitude of problems we have seen over the years with the residue from these tablets and other "miracle fertilizers" clogging up the tiny operating orifice on solenoid valves and forming hard residue on the shafts of sprinkler heads, causing the pop-up heads to not retract, giving the entire "automatic fertilizer" product line a bad name, at least among many knowledgeable homeowners and among many former irrigation contractors such as myself.
The product we offer is not a gadget, we supply quality GrassSoGreen type injection equipment, non residue-forming fertilizer concentrate and rust preventative concentrate to customers throughout America and as far away as Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Our GrassSoGreen injector is the real deal. You will have no problems with uneven application, lack of application, or caking residue causing solenoid valves not to close properly or sprinkler heads sticking up in the air without retracting properly because of gum residue on the pop-up shafts.
American Hydro is a veteran of manufacturing irrigation system injection equipment and related concentrates; they have produced the well-known Rid-O-Rust injection chemicals and GrassSoGreen concentrate for many many years and enjoy a great reputation for quality and performance. At Lubee's, we enthusiastically endorse and recommend the American Hydro products, concentrates and equipment.
The basics of the way a GrassSoGreen System works is that you have a 15 gallon UV resistant fertilizer storage tank that receives the liquid fertilizer concentrate and is then filled with water. The suction side of the pump has a tube with a filter on the suction end that sucks the fertilizer mixture from the UV resistant storage tank. The discharge side of the pump has a tube with an injection fitting on the end that will quickly and easily fit into any standard tee located on your water supply pressure line going to the irrigation system solenoid valves.
The fertilizer mixture is injected under high pressure through the injection fitting into your sprinkler system water supply pressure line. Meanwhile, the pump knows when to run and inject fertilizer because it is usually powered by current from your well pressure switch (if you have a well) or from a pump start relay getting its orders from the pump start relay circuit on your irrigation controller. In either case, the injection pump only operates while the irrigation system is also in operation.
There is also available a flow-sensing pump switch that senses water flowing through a pressure line and has a plug that it activates that can be used as a power receptacle for your pump power source.
If your water upstream of the injection point is used for potable (drinking water) purposes, it is well to install at least a check valve or whatever backflow device your local water authority requires (upstream of your injection fitting location) to prevent any possibility of the fertilizer mixture matriculating upstream into the potable water area.
We recommend the GrassSoGreen Fertilizer Injection System as being a tried and proven easy-to-use way of automatically fertilizing your lawn properly, evenly and effectively without slowly doing damage to your irrigation system components. Our GrassSoGreen system isn't an undependable toy or gadget, it's a high quality professional grade fertilizer pump injection system that really does work and will work well for many years to come.
If you have further questions or would like to discuss purchase of a GrassSoGreen System, please call us at 352-683-3582 and we will be happy to assist you.
