Once plants have germinated, then the seedlings need to survive. Although Darwin's Galapogos Island finches are famous in terms of his theory of evolution, it was actually observations of agricultural weeds that led to the "survival of the fittest" part of the idea. He saw that of many seedlings that germinated, only a few developed into adult plants.
The seedlings compete for light, water and soil nutrients. I think rocket is an excellent competitor. I fully understand why it is called "rocket".
I'm sure I planted lettuce and marigold and coriander and radishes in my plot, but all I can see is the rocket. It's even threatened to overwhelm the kale! Unfortunately I was away doing some field research for 3 weeks, and although I persuaded a nice friend to come over and do some harvesting and weighing, it's a 60 mile return journey so it didn't happen perhaps as often as was needed in those important early stages.
Have you got other crops growing up? Did you pull out any rocket or have you just managed to keep on top of it by harvesting? How often have you been cutting it?
