Copy pasting with a bit of modification from a post I made in another thread: For the seeding, ensuring good seed to soil contact is key. As dchall mentioned, you risk awakening long dormant weed seeds from below the soil surface by core aerating. However, that being said, many people swear by it because it still gives better results than just broadcast spreading seed due to the improved seed soil contact (especially if you use a dragmat or rake to break down the aerated plugs. The recommended approach would be to scalp down the lawn as low as possible. You could use a dethatcher/power rake if needed to thin out the grass a bit and remove any excess thatch (again, slightly larger chance of awakening weed seeds, but nothing as bad as aerating as long as the tines don't penetrate deep into the soil). Rake up or use a mower with a bagger to collect all the thatch and grass you pull up with the dethatching. Broadcast your seed using a broadcast or drop spreader. For KBG, you want to overseed at approximately 1.5lbs/1000 sq ft. If you do a full renovation, then you would seed at around 3lbs/1000sqft. Don't try to dump all the seed down in one pass. For KBG you will need to set the spreader to a really low setting as the seeds are tiny. Set the spreader to a low setting and make a few passes along the area till you run out of seed. This will help with a more uniform seed distribution. Use a food scale to weight out your seed correctly for your lawn square footage. If you are using KBG, you might even get away with a reno @ 1.5lbs/1000 sq ft. Definitely wouldn't recommend going over 3lbs/1000sqft. If you have the budget and the patience/manpower to topdress your overseeded lawn, then topdress with a thin layer of compost or compost-peat moss mixture. Irrespective of whether you use top dressing or not, you should rent a roller and use it to roll the seed into the soil. A combination of the scalped lawn and the rolling helps get the seed down to the soil and to make good contact with it. The topdressing is very beneficial in helping retain moisture during germination. You could also look into products like Penn mulch or Soil Moist seed coat to help in regards to keeping the seeds moist after seeding. If you don't have access to a roller or can't find one to rent, you could do what I did, and use your riding mower (if you have one) to drive around the yard and press the seed in. Takes a lot longer to do, but it does work in a pinch. Lastly, you should really look into using Tenacity during your seeding to keep the weed pressure down. This is probably even more important since your lawn probably has a lot of ungerminated weed seeds in the soil. If you don't have too large a plot of land and don't want to deal with using a tank sprayer and calibrating it, etc for spraying Tenacity, I'd highly recommend purchasing a bag of Scotts Starter Fertilizer with Weed preventer (active ingredient Mesotrione). This is the same active ingredient as that in Tenacity. One bag costs ~ $35 and covers 5000 sq ft and is supposed to have a residual of approximately 6 weeks for weed prevention. You could use a 2nd application after 5-6 weeks. This post was edited by HamsterHuey on Thu, Aug 15, 13 at 8:54

Aha, that makes sense. Welcome to GW! As you've inadvertently discovered, the in-house picture upload does one pic per post/reply. You can reply as many times as you have pics, sometimes necessary to change something in the subject line to get it to accept. A 3rd party photo hosting site can be used to display multiple pics per post/reply, for those who often want to show multiples, or show a same picture in different discussions without uploading it multiple times. (Use the HTML code that should be provided, pasted into the "Message:" box.) Use whichever best suits you, both are common. The more pics, the stronger/easier the ID.

Loss of lower leaves is normal - as plants grow new leaves, they get rid of the old ones. It's not a lack of minerals so much as a natural fact. As to your etiolation problem, you've probably guessed that you need to increase your light levels. Do a search on this forum for supplemental lighting (I'd tell you, but I can't tell you much as I don't use them). Lastly, most Crassulaceae (the family your Echeverias are in) are opportunistic growers - if it's warm, lit and there's some water they're going to grow, so I'd be careful about classifying your Echs as summer growers.

Welcome to the Texas forum! What part of Texas are you in and what have you planted? When did you plant your new vegetables and flowers? Are they planted in containers or in ground? There is a Garden Web Seed Saving Forum http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/seedsave This forum is dedicated to folks who garden in the great state of Texas :-)