Eli5 Why are weeds so hard to kill while desirable plants so hard to keep alive?

Question

Weeds grow, well, like weeds, out of the cracks of the pavement with nothing but municipal runoff to keep them alive. Meanwhile I have to work tirelessly to keep my tomato and pepper plants happy and fruitful. Why do weeds dominate a garden?

In: 61

Answer 1

The definition of a weed is an unwanted plant. You don’t want them because there’s too many of them. There’s too many of them because they don’t die easily.

You basically just asked “why are plants that are hard to kill hard to kill”.