achang89 while i am very sympathetic with your 2 acre lawn -- i myself had over 1 acre -- i had to agree that lawn responds quite well to good maintenance. i went from the worst lawn in the neighborhood to the top 10% in 1 year by cutting high (i cut at the highest setting starting from first cut in spring, about 4.5 inch), using effective pre-emergence (Dimension), aerating, and overseeding in ONE season. i do not use any compost either and do not water. i just let the lawn goes to dormancy in the hot summer. with mulch mowing and some good fescue/kbg mix, the lawn is self-repairing. the fall rain greens things up very quickly. in the fall, mowing in some leaves before collecting more for the garden compost pile. i still had quite a bit of weeds, but they are being smoldered by good grass over time. i spot spray some dandelions, but it is manageable. keep up your faith. keep on mowing high as if the weeds are not there. you will be suprised. if your soil is really poor, a quick fix is to get a coupe of tons of oceangro (google it) delivered this fall and put them down. it will really make a difference for you next year. the risk is not huge if you do not do a high dose all the time. one more thing i learned: the best way to keep grass nice is to grow less of them. i am changing some of my backyard lawn to fruit tree orchard this spring. i also get free truckload of hardwood mulch from tree trimming companies and mulch extensively along my mature trees instead trying to grow grass all the way to tree trunk. the cost could be manageable if you take a practical approach. a light spring Urea will not hurt much (19-0-7 with Dimension 0.15 from HD is all that i used this pring, which also puts down 0.5 lb of N). in early fall, put down some soybean meal ($9-10/50 lb from our local agway), at a high dose (say 15-20 lb per 1k sf), to add some organic material to the soil. a quick N to finish up the year in late fall. my costs are about $5-600 per year. you might need to double it. it is still not too bad relative to a professional management. a spot sray treatment here and there in fall and spring will not do too much harm to the lawn either. for the very hard to kill ones, like clover or violet, i leave them alone and accept them as part of the lawn and try to encourage my good grass to out-compete them. there are lots of knowledgeable folks here that i really respect. so calm down and listen and learn. you might not be able to get their stage in one shot, but i believe what they have to offer is correct and for the long run. it will reduce your effort eventually. just read and keep good notes/bookmarks bes of luck. njrookie

Greeting fellow lovers of the soil! My name is Megan and I'm currently a student. My husband and I moved to the Denver metro area in August of 2012 from central Oklahoma. We had a less than successful container garden going on our spacious porch for our first year gardening there. We now live technically in Denver, but a stone's throw from Cherry Creek Reservoir. I grew up in a very rural town with a population of around 1,000 people, so living in the city has been a major change for me especially. I am very much a country girl. My husband, on the other hand, has lived in smaller cities most of his life, and even lived in Honolulu for many years. We both long to escape the city life together one day, but that will have to wait for now. Growing up, my dad and his wife had a hog and horse farm and they also had a decent sized garden. I remember the joys of wandering the garden wide eyed and curious. My farm experience was short lived however, but was the sort of experience that stays with a person for life. It is where my connection with and love of nature began. I would love to work at a garden center eventually, but am not sure if I would be hired due to lack of experience. That said, I'd also love to take horticulture classes if there were any closer to me. For now I have just been doing my own horticulture research in my spare time until I can attend formal classes for it. As for my gardening space, it is minimal currently. We have moved into a nice apartment with a balcony, so that is what we got. Due to this fact, I am always looking for new ideas for vertical gardening. I'm mostly growing in plastic pots, 5 and 3 gallon buckets, crates, coffee cans, and basically whatever I can get my hands on that fits on the balcony lol. This is really only my second season growing anything, so yes, I'm a newb. But we all have to start somewhere.

First off lets get one thing perfectly clear I have NEVER claimed to be the ONLY person here HELPING, how absurd. I volunteer on numerous wonderful support/help forums with a multitude of absolutely wonderful knowledgeable people this one included. I never advise anyone to do or use something that I would not use myself and that will NOT change. And any time I see one recommended that I know has some problem I WILL with out doubt provide that info so that any person considering it will have full info to make an informed decision on that program themselves, with full knowledge. And I appreciate it when someone who knows something negative about a programs speaks up and provides that info, it is how we learn. IObit has been found guilty of several thefts of program material over the years this theft of malwarebytes is just one more. NOT the kind of people I want to entrust ANY ones pc to. Try reading the info provided about IOBit. I never mentioned you anywhere in my post, I simply referred to the program,(which I would have done no matter who posted about it, and have done in the past) no idea why on Earth you felt the need to slam me, but I am not the only one here you have done it to, it really does not surprise me. Done

The small frame of the tab, composed of a roll of aluminum, has to stay rigid as it pushes in the scored panel on the lid. It is also the little tab between the rolled tab and the lid that needs to stay intact until the scored panel is pushed in, and which breaks when the tab is removed. Sometimes it takes a dozen wiggles, sometime only a couple will suffice. As I mentioned in my post of Sept. 1, I collected 2,000 tabs in a 2-litre ice cream package, filling it about 3/4 full and I didn't weigh it, but it was not much over 2 lbs., 3 lbs. at the outside. It takes about 32 cans to make a pound - with or without the tabs. If you have a scrap metal dealer nearby, they will buy your scrap cans, and some prefer them uncrushed, but others don't care. Around here, they paid about 70 cents per lb., a few months ago. They say that the tabs and the cans all go into the same bucket. Crushed cans occupy about 1/3 - 1/4 the volume of intact cans. Good wishes for the weekend. ole joyful