A little corner of hippy paradise

What do you do with your old bath when you have a new one fitted? Well, I'd been wanting a deep planter for the drive, in which to grow some herbs and small food crops that were more accessible from the kitchen than the field, so I couldn't resist:















The CDs aren't just to enhance its eccentricity. They're also to scare birds off the peas, which I'm hoping will cover the trellis at the back. To the left we've got mint, parsley and strawberries:















There are some peas and corander to the right..















And I think this is rocket:















- though we planted so many seeds in there that we won't know what's what exactly until we can see, smell and taste it all. Which is half the fun!

It makes me smile anyway, every time I look at it.

Planting query

Seed packets rarely advise the planting of solitary seeds. The advice is usually to plant two or more, then select the strongest and thin out when they've become seedlings.

What I want to know is this: do they give this advice because they expect some of their seeds to fail, or to do less well than others?

Or... is it that seeds produce stronger plants when they have to compete?

I've got some pots of pea seedlings to illustrate my question: