Project #1 - Rid the Lawn of Weeds!

Our first little project was to spray our lawn to get rid of all the weeds. We aren't able to move in yet, so we are just working on the outside for now. A few days ago we went to Walmart and got ourselves some Ortho Weed be Gone Max. One bottle with the spray nozzle that connects to the hose and another bottle of just concentrate.
Today, I went out to our duplex to spray. I became quite overwhelmed at the lack of grass and large amount of weeds! I think the previous owner didn't really care about the lawn...and many other things :) I sure hope that we can work our magic on it this summer!

I made sure to wear good tennis shoes, pants, long sleeves, gloves, and a mask so I didn't have to worry too much about the weed killer. I started about 9 a.m. to give the grass enough time to dry before our renters came home.

I had to water the grass first. Man, I had no idea how big the lawn was until I was watering it by hand! After that was finished, I hooked up the bottle to the hose. It seemed to go on very well. It only took about 15-20 min to cover about 3/4 of the front yard, then it was time to refill the bottle.

Well, I did not know that the bottle with the hose connector can't be opened. Arg!!!! So I had a nice bottle of concentrate and nothing to put it in. I called Scott to see if his mom (an amazing gardener) had a hand sprayer. She did! I hurried on over there to borrow it then I was back into business.
The hand sprayer is like 95% slower than the hose sprayer to cover a yard, but it got the product on the weeds. I guess we will see in a couple of days which one did a better job; the hose connector to the bottle, or the concentrate in the hand sprayer.

After about 40 min. of finishing the front yard I went to the back yard. There is a pretty good part of grass, then a pretty healthy patch of weeds. I started on the nicer side just focusing the hand sprayer on the weeds there. Soon I noticed that the sprayer was not working how it had been earlier. I looked inside and there was a little bit of dirt on the bottom. It must have gotten in when I was filling it up with water so now it was clogging the hose that connects to the sprayer. Note to self: make sure no dirt gets in a hand sprayer. I could not put my hand in to unclog it because there was still a lot of weed killer in the bottle. I ended up dumping the rest, about a gallon, of the mixture on the weeded area and got ready to go home. I will need to clean out the sprayer and make sure its working properly again before I return it :)

My plan is to go check on the lawn in a few days. I hope to see dead weeds :)