Question
I posted a thread on gardenweb.com and tried to see what advice I could get.  Here is what I wrote:
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My husband and I bought our house in end of 2006, when it was just being built. I was glad that we had 0.5 acre of new lawn. However, there were at least 30 varieties of weeds occupying 60% of the lawn in Spring 2007. I am sure that it was another episode of builder's purchasing for cheapest sod which bore a lot of weed seeds already. We hand weeded as much as possible constantly every season. Now, it starts to warm up, and different varieties, besides those grown last year, multiply like crazy. The weeds occupy at least 70% of lawn. I have hand weeded since January, but I am so tired physically bending down hand pulling and digging so often, besides feeling overwhelmed mentally.

If the weeds are compact and bigger in size, I use a weeder to dig and pull them out. If the weeds are small and compact, I just pull them by hand. If the weeds are small and spread well without distinctive separation from one another, I use the weeder scratching on the ground back and forth. I insist conditioning the soil organically. I have spread gypsum, cottonseed meal, soybean meal, compost, and etc since last spring. I started using corn gluten meal to prevent weed seeds germinating in the end of this January. I am not sure if I have done enough to the lawn or not, yet I have constantly put stuff on the lawn and hand weeded. I would not feel tired at all physically or mentally if all I have done improves healthier lawn and reduces weeds. I know that improving soil condition requires at least a couple of years of constant work. I very much understand that the improvement is not happening overnight. However, I am really overwhelmed about all those weeds. They are on and on.

Are there any easier ways to hand weed? Are there better ways to prevent weeds organically? Please help! Thanks
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I got one answer for using a weed hunt.  Then, I got another answer for using Round-up and etc, because I was told to give up organic unless I was closeby a feed store.  Although I have only tried organic fertilizers for a year, I don't want to give up that easy.  It's more work and more expensive to do it organically, but I don't feel it's right to use chemicals for some reason.  Would you please help me?  Oh, what about those organic herbicides at the Peaceful valley (groworganic.com)?  thanks

Answer
What a valiant effort you have made in the face of such a formidable opponent, my friend.  But I think you may have missed a few important steps in the war against weeds.

First, you did not mention anything whatsoever suggesting you have had your Soil tested.  What kind of Soil do you think grows a lot of Weeds?  It's not doing enough to build your Lawn, but the Weeds sure are happy.  You have GOT to get a Soil test.  It's the only way to find out what is there, and what is NOT there.  Right?  Get your Soil tested, then fix it.  This is the first step in ANY progressive Lawn care program.  Weeds are good at growing in poor Soil.  Grass is not.  Weeds always win in that situation.  As you have unfortunately discovered, the hard way.

Next, considering that the majority of Weeds are annual plants, are you getting ALL of them before they set seed?  Mowing is one way to wipe them out in a single season.  Dandelions must be dug out by their tap roots and composted before their seedheads disperse.  Be diligent about getting rid of those.

Third, annual cover crops are very good at making Weeds miserable.  If your Lawn is dominated by Weeds, I would start from scratch and plant a nice big juicy cover crop to build up the Soil and crowd out the Weeds.

Next, do you water your Grass properly?  What kind of 'schedule' is your Lawn on when it comes to irrigation?  Do you give it enough, all at once, and then wait for it to dry out?  Weeds thrive on dry low-water maintenance; Grass does not.

And finally, the Grass variety has a lot to do with the up-side of its potential for vigor.  In other words, if you have a low quality Grass seed/sod, you are never going to have a high quality Lawn, no matter what you do, because (a) it will never look that pretty and (b) it will never be tough enough to beat Weeds into the ground.

Tell me where you live -- preferably your zipcode -- and we can go into this further.  Your Grass variety, if at all available, would also be nice, to understand what is happening, and what is not.  rsvp