Jake's Pots of Herbs

It's that time of year when the children come home with an overwatered cup of dirt in which they've planted far too many seeds. This time it was Jake's cub scout activity. He arrived home with five pots of planted herb seeds. He immediately handed them over to Viva to take care of. Kara told her to take them upstairs to their bedroom, but I rescued them from that dark fate. How can a seed germinate if it's in a usually dark room far from the window?! I had her place them in the kitchen's bay window box which is a lovely, warm, sun drenched place to reside. Viva put plastic bags over the tops of the pots.

Within days one pot sprouted little plants. Over the next two weeks, three more pots had plants came up, but the fifth pot remained devoid of greenery. It's been three weeks now, so I took the problem to the source. I asked Jake and Viva what could be wrong. Jake immediately said that Viva must have under-watered them or not given them enough sunlight. I assured him neither of those things happened. I then suggested they look closely at one particular pot. Viva noticed that it had two different types of plants sprouting up.

Jake concurred that that made sense because when he was planting the seeds, he lost track on the final round which pot was the empty one. So that mystery is solved. Now for the tough love part…we need to thin out the crowded groups of seeds. I do not like killing baby plants. I know it will produce better, stronger surviving plants, but it's just so brutal. (Unlike harvesting which often kills plants, too?)