http://www.garden-counselor-lawn-care.com/crabgrass-pictures.html Above is the place which I used to confirm crabgrass in my lawn. I appreciate your concern and I am really grateful, longer I think about it I have more doubts. Today is already dark outside but I will try to take few pictures tomorrow. I do not have macro lens and I am not sure what will be the quality of the picture. Is there anyway to attache it to the thread. I do not think I have seen head or flower of this weed (I wonder I could recognize it? :) ). I cut the grass on Friday and everything looks even but the weed in question is definitely lighter in color Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Conselor

"The reason Miracle Gro is thought to be bad for the soil is that it is not food for soil microbes." This isnÂt true. Microbes might not use the elements specifically for fuel, but they use them to carry out biological functions just like every other plant or animal. "The salty chemicals in Miracle Gro are not in any of the food groups (protein, vitamins, minerals, or carbohydrates)." This isnÂt true either. The minerals in fertilizers are minerals and are used by plants to make proteins, vitamins, and carbohydrates. As I said above, microbes use them as well. The deleterious effects of chemical fertilizers are way way overblown. Yes, if you inject anhydrous ammonia into the plow layer of your soil you are going to wipe out the microbe population and essentially sterilize the soil for a couple of weeks. If on the other hand you spray your yard with miracle grow in solution you are only going to stimulate microbes that will use the available nitrogen to burn carbon (organic matter) for fuel. " "Salts" defined in simplest terms, simply means that it dissolves in water." That is not a good definition. Many salts are considered insoluble such as phosphate rocks. A better definition is that a salt is a cation (positive charge because it is missing an electron) and an anion (negative charge because it has an extra electron) joined together (the positive and negative charges being drawn together). Table salt for example is a sodium cation bound with a chloride anion. Potassium sulfate, ammonium nitrate, etc are soluble salts that are used for fertilizers because they are composed of elements that plants use as nutrients.

I will be calling the manufacturers tomorrow, but meanwhile ...... I just picked a couple of garden guru brains at my local Ace Hardware. Cyn, concensus is that the Weed-n-Feed, while it may have lost some punch, will not harm when applied as directed (on wet foliage), so don't waste it (but, I'd still call Scotts and ask, just to be safe). As for the milky spore, Ace opinion is that it's okay since it remains inert until watered into the soil - again, I will call the company tomorrow, and there's defintely no dating anywhere on the bag. My Spray-N-Grow stuff is totally outside the retail arena, so I'll hold off until I get an answer from them directly. I just hate throwing perfectly good stuff away!

It very well could be. One of the basic rules of safe home canning is that you usually cannot home can your own recipes. You have no way of knowing what the pH is, the density, or the processing time required. There are tested and approved recipes for most anything you want to can. Personal recipes are never recommended as safe unless lab tested. The risk of botulism is just too important to ignore. Home canning, especially pressure canning, is not something one can just jump into blind. It has a learning curve. I'd suggest you begin by first comparing your recipe to one of the approved ones in one of the approved canning publications or at NCHFP. The differences could be vital. Otherwise freeze your chili. http://nchfp.uga.edu/ Dave PS: and please, for your own safety do have your inherited canner checked by a professional. A 40 year pressure canner may be fine but it may also be quite risky to use. And a 40 year old gauge (or petcock if it has one) is very likely inaccurate.